I am having a break from my new smooth jazz album the follow up to Life in Slow Motion which I hope to have out early next year. But to keep my hand in I thought it was about time I put together a christmas CD so I selected 8 christmas carols and put my slant on them.

All tracks apart from the lead are band in a box, the lead instruments are played via wind controller and use the great Orange Tree Samples Passion Flute and Steel Guitar VSTI's.

If you would like to know what styles etc were used please ask.

Thanks

Adrian

The True Meaning of Christmas

Adrian,

That is a VERY nice collection of Christmas songs!

A great mix of styles - the cool jazz Silent Night and Good King, the rockin' God Rest Ye... and Joy To The World...

The melodies are nicely played. The mixes are well done.

A very good listen. It's a Christmas CD that I would recommend to friends (and you won't hear me say that often - unless it's Martina McBride )....

Nice.

floyd

From a sampler of listening through it, it sounds great!! I have always loved Xmas music-have my car stereo on an all X-mas music through X-mas day every year. Never get tired of it. Thanks for posting this! Take care. Greg

Very nice. Excellent work. Thanks for posting.

Charlie

Floyd, Charlie and Greg thanks for the listens and nice comments.

I have always loved Xmas albums and never tire of these timeless songs no-matter what style they get done in. I have always loved the smooth jazz take on christmas and for a long time wanted to do an album but felt perhaps the smooth jazz (Kenny G/David Koz) style had been overdone so I wanted to create a collection of various styles but all with a bit of a smooth vibe.

To me Silent Night should be laid back whilst God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen has always in my mind needed an almost Santana sound to it. I wanted to limit the album to around 25-28 mins and only include carols.

As these songs are so well loved I felt that some should be stripped back and left a little bare so Deck the Halls and Hark the Herald seemed to need this style so where the candidates.

I also wanted a little smooth country vibe and as I love the mandolin felt it must feature somewhere so Oh Come All Ye Faithful went from smooth jazz to rock and finally ended up with the mandolin and country vibe

One song didn't make the grade Angles we have heard on high, just couldn't get the melody to flow as I wanted so rather than put it on for the sake I cut it.

Thanks again for the nice comments

Adrian

The difference between a performer and a full fletched artist right there!

Adrain,

I listened to both "The True Meaning of Christmas" and "The Winter Edition". Both are studio quality and radio ready. I found the acoustic tracks of "The Winter Edition" more to my taste but that's personal preference and no reflection on the tracks.

You have a wonderful ear for arrangement and production. Thanks for sharing.