You might think that “can I come up with an entire month’s worth of songs that aren’t at all Christmas-related and somehow make them Christmas-related?” is the kind of thing I do only to entertain myself. And you’d be right. But it has the side effect that occasionally I discover new music I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. And really, isn’t discovering new music the greatest gift of all?
I had never heard of Don Ewell, who was a stride pianist, and I’d never heard of stride piano, either. “Atlanta Blues” by the Don Ewell Quartet feels like the prototypical example of an entire genre of music that I could immediately recognize, even if I wouldn’t ever have been able to name it, or even place it in the right decade.
It puts me immediately in mind of a specific time and place: either standing in a long queue for the Tower of Terror, or watching a movie from the late 1990s or early 2000s that quickly needs to establish it’s set in the 20s or 30s.
I was also unfamiliar with Jósean Log, a Mexican musician who both first gained prominence via YouTube and uses a ukulele as his primary instrument, and yet somehow the combination of those things doesn’t make him insufferable. 1No offense intended to ukulele devotees. I actually like ukuleles, but in the wrong hands, and especially when combined with YouTube… woof. I used to be an admirer of big mustaches, too, and I think we all remember how late 2000s hipsters ruined that for everyone.
All of his stuff that I’ve heard is pretty catchy, but I’m particularly a fan of “A Pesar de Todo,” from his EP Más Normal De Lo Normal.2I also really enjoyed “Cadáver Exquisito,” a collaboration between Jósean Log and Diego Lorenzini.
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