Most Christmas music falls into one of two categories.
First, you’ve got the music written for the weeks leading up to Christmas. These are the high-spirited, up-tempo numbers that make you excited for the season’s first snow, the neighbourhood’s first decorative lights, the grocery store’s first egg nog. Think “Jingle Bell Rock” or “Sleigh Ride” or quirky indie re-works of Christmas classics.
Then there’s music made for the day itself. These are generally more reverent or sappy or both. Most of the Bing Crosby Christmas songbook fits into this category, along with most traditional religious carols.
“Sugar Rum Cherry” – Ellington and Strayhorn’s re-work of the Tchaikovsky classic from The Nutcracker – is different. It doesn’t get the listener hyped for Christmas weeks in advance, and it doesn’t communicate the fireside bliss of some idealized Christmas day that you might see on a greeting card. To me, this one feels like it’s written for the end of a hectic, noisy, just barely enjoyable Christmas.
The kids have finally conked out after a chaotic day fueled by adrenaline, toys, sugar, and grandparents. The kitchen is an absolute disaster. The excitement of the first snow of the season has given way to the grim reality that you’ve got to shovel that stuff for the next eight weeks.
That kind of night calls for a stiff drink, a comfy chair, and “Sugar Rum Cherry.”
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The percussion. Reverberating as if bubbling up from the basement stairs of a jazz club somewhere in the seedier part of Chicago.
2. The saxophones. The way they roar and moan the melody could hardly be more different from the sound achieved by the Celesta, the instrument that took the melody in Tchaikovsky’s original piece.
3. It’s rare for a Christmas song to be described as “sultry.” The only other one I can think of is that awful “Santa Baby” song, and that’s more silly than sultry. This one saunters out of your speakers and winks at you before you know what’s happening. Then it uses some 1920s cheeky slang to ask whether you celebrate Christmas here often.
Recommended listening activity:
Watching discarded wrapping paper roasting on an open fire.