Brian Bromberg - Celebrate Me Home: The Holiday Sessions '2020

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. This Christmas
02. Wonderful Christmastime
03. Let’s Go on a Sleigh Ride!
04. Let It Snow
05. The Christmas Song
06. Jingle Bells / Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel / St. Thomas
07. Celebrate Me Home
08. Deck the Halls / God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
09. The Holidays Without You
10. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
11. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
12. Feliz Navidad



For a virtuoso jazz bassist and world-renowned producer, quarantined in his
Southern California home during a global pandemic and contemplating an uncertain
future, the holidays would seem to be the last thing on one’s mind. The
chameleonic Brian Bromberg has never been one to follow the expected path,
however. With live gigs cancelled and the opportunity for collaboration
complicated by social distancing, Bromberg virtually assembled a stellar cohort
of musicians to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year on Celebrate Me
Home: The Holiday Sessions.

Celebrate Me Home takes its title from the Kenny Loggins classic, co-written by
Bob James, which feels all the more poignant given our current circumstances.
Gorgeously expressed by vocalist Chris Walker, the song achingly captures the
yearning for a return to familiar surroundings and loved ones that many of us
are feeling right now, regardless of the season.

Available now on Artistry Music/Mack Avenue Music Group, Celebrate Me Home takes
its title from the Kenny Loggins classic, co-written by Bob James, which feels
all the more poignant given our current circumstances. Gorgeously expressed by
vocalist Chris Walker, the song achingly captures the yearning for a return to
familiar surroundings and loved ones that many of us are feeling right now,
regardless of the season.

“It’s an incredible song, and it absolutely fits this
moment,” Bromberg says, admitting that tackling beloved Christmas songs in
isolation made for an unusual challenge. “We can’t go anywhere, we
can’t do anything; we’re all stuck dreaming about all the things
we’d rather be doing, the fun we’d love to be having, but we just
can’t. So, we had to figure out how to create a vibe and an experience
while we’re stuck in this weird place. On the flip side of that, I
don’t think this record would have happened the way that it did had I not
been in quarantine. This made it possible to take a dark place and turn it into
a light place, which became my saving grace.”

The album’s joyous spirit belies the conditions under which it was
created. The sessions were conducted piece by piece, with each musician
contributing from their home studio, or in isolation at a studio of choice. To
transcend those limitations, Bromberg invited an all-star roster of special
guests: vocalists Walker and Maysa, saxophonists Everette Harp, Elan Trotman and
Gary Meek, flutist Najee, guitarist Ramon Stagnaro and steel pan master Kareem
Thompson. They join a remarkable band of longtime collaborators that includes
keyboardist Tom Zink, guitarist Ray Fuller, saxophonist Andrew Neu, drummers
Tony Moore and Joel Taylor, and percussionist Alex Acuña.

Longtime Bromberg fans have become familiar with the versatile bassist’s
whiplash shifts in style and approach from one project to the next over the
course of his four-decade career. His recordings span big band swing and smooth
jazz, Latin rhythms and tender balladry, raucous funk and blistering rock (the
holiday album’s release, in fact, coincides with the remixed and
remastered reissue of his 2012 album Bromberg Plays Hendrix, a muscular tribute
to the late rock icon). But Celebrate Me Home brings Bromberg’s many
facets together for a musical holiday party where jazz mingles with calypso and
R&B meets swing under the mistletoe.

That stylistic diversity is in keeping with the eclectic choice of material on
the album, which includes many of the expected Yuletide classics (“The
Christmas Song,” “Deck the Halls”) but also such pop hits as
Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” and Paul McCartney’s
“Wonderful Christmastime,” José Feliciano’s “Feliz
Navidad,” a smash hit that is rarely reprised, and a pair of heartfelt
original compositions.

Bromberg is the first to admit that the idea of recording a Christmas album had
never crossed his mind. He had contributed to other artists’ Christmas
albums, including projects by David Benoit and Brian Culbertson, and knew that
radio was always hungry for new songs of the season as the end of the year came
into sight. He was also urged to get into the spirit by his fiancée and her
best friend, so eventually gave in and recorded a finger-snapping swing
rendition of “Let It Snow,” featuring a duet between Walker and
Maysa. “It was so much fun,” Bromberg says, “I decided to take
this more seriously. It allowed me to be creative and jump into Latin jazz, big
band jazz, swinging straight-ahead jazz, funky stuff and R&B jams, all on one
record and get away with it.”

A smooth, soulful version of “This Christmas” opens the album, with
Bromberg playing the silky melody on nylon-string piccolo bass.
McCartney’s polarizing “Wonderful Christmastime” follows,
with Bromberg tipping his Santa cap to the ex-Beatle’s legacy with an
homage to “All You Need Is Love” in Andrew Neu’s horn
arrangement. The entrance of sleigh bells segues into the wintry landscape of
Bromberg’s first original, the warmly embracing “Let’s Go On
a Sleigh Ride!”

The open fire roasts more than chestnuts on a romantic reimagining of “The
Christmas Song,” while Bromberg gives “Jingle Bells” a
cultural twist as a medley with “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” along
with the Barbados-born Trotman and Thompson’s steel pans transforming
both songs into a tropical calypso culminating at the end in “St.
Thomas.” Bromberg shows off his impressive drum skills as he sets the pace
for a brisk, swinging hybrid of “Deck the Halls” and “God Rest
Ye Merry Gentlemen” before slowing things down for the original ballad
“Holidays Without You.” Stagnaro and Acuña add a Latin feel to
“The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Feliz
Navidad,” while Bromberg’s acoustic bass and Neu’s baritone
sax stand in for Thurl Ravenscroft’s snarl on “You’re a Mean
One, Mr. Grinch.”

For all of the improbabilities facing its creation, Celebrate Me Home ended up
being a lively and deeply felt project of which Bromberg is deservedly proud.
“The one thing that I hope people will hear on the record is
honesty,” he concludes. “I really think you can hear that
we’re all having fun and that my heart was in it, 100 percent.”

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