Miles Goodman, Paul Williams: The Muppet Christmas Carol

“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. 

Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.” 

― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Jim Henson (1936-1990) began professionally playing with puppets in 1958, founding the then-titled Muppets, Inc. which you probably now know as the Jim Henson Company. Henson created several characters and skillfully brought them to life through the magic of puppetry. Tragically, he died in 1990, from a late-diagnosed infection in his lungs. At his funeral, many of the puppeteers and voice actors that helped him create the Muppet universe reprised the many roles for which they were responsible and shared remembrances of him through song. The Wikipedia article describes it well:

"In the final minutes of the two-and-a-half-hour service, six of the core Muppet performers—Dave Goelz, Frank Oz, Kevin Clash, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, and Richard Hunt—sang, in their characters' voices, a medley of Jim Henson's favorite songs, eventually ending with a performance of "Just One Person" that began with Richard Hunt singing alone, as Scooter. Henson employee Chris Barry writes that during each verse, "each Muppeteer joined in with their own Muppets until the stage was filled with all the Muppet performers and their beloved characters." The funeral was later described by Life as 'an epic and almost unbearably moving event.'"

Prior to his death, Henson had been in talks with Disney about merging his company with the larger corporation, but negotiations had been halted after his passing. Henson's son Brian took the helm and instead negotiated a deal regarding release rights and began to pursue completing Jim's most recent project, A Muppet Christmas Carol.

--

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) lived in a time before the internet, and therefore also a time before people communicated platforms of social change by sharing memes on Facebook.

Instead, Dickens and his contemporaries would write pamphlets or essays describing the social ills of Victorian Europe and hope that through their publication, the masses would come to understand their point of view. This worked out much as you might imagine it would today.

In 1843, Dickens was facing a decline in popularity and sought to craft a work that would provide a new and enduring source of income. He was also beset by the social injustice of his day, particularly as it related toward children and the lack of any regulation over the employment of young ones. He himself spent time in a blacking factory at a young age in order to support his family whilst his father was incarcerated, an experience that left him both scarred and emboldened with a sense of equality amongst the various social classes. 
Dickens wanted to create something that would express his discontent with the nature of avarice and classism that pervaded London, but he also wanted it to be something that people would actually want to read, thus giving it half a chance of actually changing people's minds. So, he tapped into the Victorian love affair with the Christmas tradition and paired that with his own childhood trauma, made a bi-personality cross-section of his father and Bob's your uncle- a Christmas Carol.

Success was immediate. In England it was revered and established as a "new gospel" of the day, evoking the humanistic response that Dickens had envisioned. Many who read it were inspired by the redemption of Scrooge, perhaps to say that it was relieving to learn that no human could ever sink low enough so as to be immune to atonement of the soul, the spirit. As a result of the archetypal qualities inherent to the story, it quickly became a tome to tell and retell, being set for stage in no time at all.

This brings us to our example today. Carol had a tremendous impact on Victorian society and heavily influences the contemporary observance of Christmas around the globe. Many of the less sacred traditions had been eroded by Puritanism.  Puritans of course being a group who firmly believed that if they weren't going to have fun, then they had better make damn sure nobody else did either.

Shortly before his death, Jim Henson had been planning to create a Muppet edition of the Christmas Carol with the Disney collaboration, and his son Brian directed the production two years following his father's death in 1990. The adaptation is remarkably true to the original work, omitting little and frequently utilizing Dickens' own words throughout the screenplay. It is one of the few Muppet movies to utilize a majority of human actors in major roles with Muppets in supporting roles.  

The film was scored by Miles Goodman (1949-1996), who had worked with Frank Oz on some of his projects, and had songs written by Paul Williams (b. 1940). Goodman first developed an interest in film scoring from learning of the career from his cousin, Johnny Mandel. Goodman moved to Los Angeles, studied composition and theory and eventually broke his way into film scoring due to a natural talent for orchestration. 

Paul Williams is probably better known for his work in popular music, having written hits for David Bowie, the Carpenters, and Three Dog Night. Williams connected with Henson in 1979 and cowrote "Rainbow Connection" with Kenneth Ascher. Interestingly enough, Williams also played roles on the screen in several Muppet-related productions as well as other film and television shows on which he occasionally wrote music. 

An interesting note of production drama is the omission of "When Love is Gone" from the theatrical release, and several subsequent home releases. During this song, Belle sings about how Scrooge only cares about money and a pivotal moment of character development occurs as we learn of how Scrooge lost her affections in favor of his lust for wealth. Allegedly, Jeffrey Katzenberg thought kids would not connect here and thus the song was cut, however the reprise, "When Love is Found" remained intact at the conclusion of the film. 

The work is a refreshing retelling of the classic story, clad in the anticipated antics that comes with a Muppets title. Michael Caine is a convincing Scrooge, and the warmth and spirit of the message comes through in spades. The score only amplifies this effect, while not showing us anything remarkably different from the prototypical Hollywood musical, the tunes are catchy and heart-warming and will definitely leave you humming along as you go about your business. A good deal of allure surrounding the original work comes from the fact that it is not a straightforward Christmas story, but more correctly a ghost story on and about Christmastime and the Henson treatment provides an appropriate climate for this, with healthy interspersions of comedy to alleviate nightmares in younger viewers. 

All your base are belong to us.

The music carries the film well, and endears the characters to us as we bear witness to Scrooge's development. Perhaps the most enjoyable tune for me comes from the Ghost of Christmas Present, who greets us with "It Feels Like Christmas", a spirited jaunt through Christmas day and all that it entails. 

I've written a lot lately about how much we structure the holiday to be driven toward some insanely jolly and nigh-unachievable "perfect" Christmas. We are comforted by this song in the sense that Christmas can be found in many places, and it doesn't necessarily take anything special to observe the warmth of the holiday, beyond an open heart and mind, something that Scrooge himself must work at to perfect. 

It's not what we've got, but who we've got that counts and that to seek out the seemingly "little things" makes the season all that more special. 

See you next Friday.

-ED



Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Williams_(songwriter)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Christmas_Carol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Henson#Illness_and_death

Buck Ram, Walter Kent, Kim Gannon: I'll Be Home For Christmas

So we've had a couple weeks of French music.  That wasn't by design, but more so related to the intensely cerebral process I utilize to pick pieces of music to wax intellectual about.  It begins by determining that it's not Friday and that I don't have to worry about it for a few days.  Then Thursday happens and I promise myself to spend a least a modicum of time doing some background research, though at this point it's not even necessary to have chosen a title.  Then Friday happens and I begin to frantically look for inspiration in the Amazon Prime Music Christmas Station, which when set to "Classical" will only play the Nutcracker Suite or the Piano Guys cover of "Let It Go".

I got interested in a "Carol of the Bells"-"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" mish-mash that these guys did, but soon became disinterested after realizing that they really weren't bringing anything new to the table.  I've heard a lot of people talking about them and of course the sharing of things on Facebook seems to feature them a fair bit, but honestly it sounds like this generation's version of Liberace.

To me, it all just sounds like psuedo-classical music manufactured for people who don't really like music anyway, but like other people to assume that they're cultured.  Nothing is new and unique about any of the arrangements I've listened to- and yes they do arrange certain pieces together that are unique to each other, but nothing changes about the style or the structure.  Nothing like Holst's superposition of "Greensleeve's" over the "Dargason" in any event.  Or James Barnes massive undertaking on the 24th Caprice by Paganini.  Both of those pieces took music we'd heard many times over and found something new and different to share.  "Oh!  Oh!  But Mr. Music Snob!" you protest.  "You haven't seen that one video where they all play the piano and screw around with the inside of it! That's new and different!"

"Bitch, please." - John Cage

And even then, Maurice Delage and Henry Cowell were doing the prepared piano and pluck the strings thing back in the early 1900's to boot!  My main argument stands- I see nothing new and different about what they offer the musical world.  However, this isn't a tirade about that.  This is a an post about a man named Kim Gannon (1900-1974) and something he shared with Bing Crosby on a golf course in 1943.

The year is of particular note as at this point in history, the United States was heavily embroiled in what would later be confirmed as World War II.  Evidently the "War to End All Wars" was ineffective and thusly was retroactively named "WWI".  Gannon was a lawyer, having graduated Albany Law School he passed the New York State bar exam in the mid-30's. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of information about his youth and education, so I'm having a hard time explaining the jump from lawyer to hit Broadway/Movie lyricist, but jump he did.  In 1942 he had caught the attention of Glenn Miller, who recorded his "Moonlight Cocktail" and he shortly transitioned to full-time lyric-writing.

Of interesting note is a copyright claim by another accomplished lyricist/poet named Samuel "Buck" Ram (1907-1991), who in December of 1942 had copyrighted a song called "I'll Be Home for Christmas (Tho' Just in Memory)" which according to Wikipedia did not exactly resemble the product put out by Gannon and music by Walter Kent (1911-1994). Apparently they had been made aware of the song while having drinks together with Ram who related that his publisher had put the brakes on its release until after Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" had its run.  In light of the similarity of the Gannon/Kent version, Ram's publisher filed suit and won.

Gee, officer...I swear I have the license around here somewhere...

Bing Crosby is possibly the most well-known performer of this work, though it has been recorded a ridiculous number of times.  The lyrics describe the traditional dream of the warm, family-centric Christmas, but it ends somberly, explaining that the narrator might only see this idyllic scene in his dreams.  Gannon claimed to have written it, reminded of the many thousands of soldiers who would be celebrating Christmas in foreign lands, away from the comforts of home.  Ram claims his version was written at age 16 as a gift for his mother while he was away at college.

No matter the authorship, the theme is universal.  In the US, the song was credited for raising troop morale, and awareness of the challenges those that were serving faced, not just from the physical threat of their enemies, but the psychological impacts related to separation from everything they cherished.  The song speaks to the attainment of the "perfect Christmas" and therefore perhaps could be interpreted to reflect the inaccessibility of what we all perceive individually to be home.  It doesn't matter what stands in the way, be it war, travel, work, or depression.  We all have felt the absence of happiness and warmth in our lives, and so Gannon and Ram speak to us through Kent and Crosby.

So, I began today complaining about unoriginality being praised in music land and I would be remiss to leave you with something we've all heard before, not to knock ol' Bing's rendition, but let's take a shot at something that might be new to some of you.  The United State's Airforce has a jazz band, known as the Airmen of Note, who derive their ancestry through the incomparable Glenn Miller who once led the Army Air Force Jazz band and began a tradition of insanely talented musicians and kick-ass jazz bands that continues to this day.  This track comes from their "Cool Yule" album, where they take Christmas classics and shoehorn them into Big Band era classics.  In the case of I'll Be Home for Christmas, they arrange it stylized as the Glenn Miller Band's "Moonlight Serenade".

I find it very appropriate, knowing the sacrifice Miller himself made, and though I don't know that it was a conscious decision on the part of the band's arranger, it serves as a fitting tribute just the same.

See you next Friday.

-ED




Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ll_Be_Home_for_Christmas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Ram

Adolphe Adam: Cantique de Noël, text by Placide Cappeau

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men."

- Albert Einstein                             

- From Living Philosophies, 1931 

Placide Cappeau (1808-1877) was born into a family of wine and barrel makers in a small town in southern France.  At the age of 8, he was accidentally shot in the hand by a friend and as a result had his right hand amputated.  I was not able to find specific details on the incident, but the fateful friend's father, a Mr. Brignon, paid for the young Cappeau to attend a private school and as a result he was able to go on to college where he would pursue a life of academia and study law in Paris.  He was an artist and an author of poetry and literature.  He would return to the family business and become a merchant of wine and fine liquors, but he did dabble in politics becoming mayor of his home town of Roquemaure.  Cappeau never lost his interest in the art of the written word, and as a result he plays an important role in our lesson today. He was an intellectual, a non-Christian and would become a bit of a free-thinker and be accused of being a socialist.

Adolphe Adam (1803-1856) was born to a musical father and the daughter of a physician in Paris. His father, Jean-Louis Adam, was a professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory and was opposed to his son's pursuit of a musical career.  Adolphe's initial forays into the musical realm were whimsical and improvised, but eventually his father would relent and allow him to study organ at the conservatory.  Adolphe would soon become a popular composer for music in the Paris vaudeville houses and he would successfully finance and open his own opera house, only to be shut down months later by the 1848 revolution in France.  However, he would emerge from financial ruin due to his fame from his vaudeville days and a burgeoning career as a music journalist.  He would return to the conservatory later in life as a teacher, ultimately following in the footsteps of his father.

In 1843, the Catholic church in Roquemaure completed renovations on their organ and the priest determined that it merited a dedication of literary proportions and thus commissioned Cappeau being that he was a local wordsmith of relative fame.  The poem he completed was entitled, "Minuit, chrétiens" (Midnight, Christians).  The first two stanzas correlate heavily with Luke's account of the birth of Christ, but in the first stanza more of Cappeau's ideology comes to the surface:

The Redeemer has broken every bond:
The Earth is free, and Heaven is open.
He sees a brother where there was only a slave,
Love unites those that iron had chained.
Who will tell Him of our gratitude,
For all of us He is born, He suffers and dies.

It was this portion that would eventually catch the eye of Unitarian minister and music writer, John Sullivan Dwight who would eventually translate it it to English, but we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves now.

Cappeau's poem was well-received and as a result he sought out a composer to set the text to song. During a trip to Paris, he was able to petition Adolphe Adam, with whom he shared mutual friends, a Mr. and Mrs. Laurey.  Adam was at a height of popularity at the time and finished the song in short order and the completed work was premiered in Roquemaure in 1847 to immediate acclaim and was rocked out to in many a household in France.

"The fidelity, Jean-Luc! My God the FIDELITY!"

Some time later, however, the work was attacked and defamed as a result of it's lyricist's political standings.  In 1848, France underwent a revolution against the largely conservative ruling class.  It ended ultimately with the establishment of a new government, but one that sought to placate the radical leftist movement that had sieged Paris.  The new government attempted to create jobs for the unemployed through civic works projects, however most of the projects were unnecessary and only fueled further anger at the class inequality.  The problem for the reformers though was that the majority of rural France was still largely conservative, so after the initial wave of liberalism, the tide shifted and Napoleon I's nephew was elected on a somewhat liberal platform (and obvious name-brand recognition), only to take pretty drastic measures to reduce unrest in Paris and regain control.

He would eventually come to lead a coup, ending in him claiming the title Emperor Napoleon III, but getting worked over by some turbo-charged Prussians.  However, one significant outcome of the 1848 revolution was the abolition of slavery in the French colonies.

So, Cappeau was a bit of a liberal for his time and outspoken enough in his writings that the Christian conservatives took umbrage at the popularity of his work and began to cast aspersions toward it. They even went as far to call out Adolphe Adam for being a Jew, though my research uncovered that he wasn't (interestingly enough I found no shortage of websites telling the story of this piece by incorrectly proclaiming: a priest, an atheist and a Jew walk into a bar...).

The silly part is that Cappeau really wasn't any sort of revolutionary figure so far as I can tell.  He marketed wine, he like to read and write, and was well-educated.  It just so happened that he also had come to think that maybe people shouldn't be treated differently because of their social standing.

But slander the religious conservatives did.  Despite this, the piece found its way to London and was translated many times over, eventually coming across the desk of the aforementioned John Sullivan Dwight who, being an American living in the year 1858, also found the topic of human slavery particularly of note.

It was Dwight who penned the version that you are most likely familiar with.  It is an interesting rendition and holds on to the majority of the intention from the straight translation of Cappeau's poem, though he does take a slightly more religious tone in the third stanza, owing much of the deliverance from oppression to God, whereas love tends to be a more central theme in Cappeau's original.

What I find fascinating is that the whole work is an interpretation of the birth of Christ, a central moment in Christian theology, through the lens of a non-believer.  And that's an intentionally poor choice of words, because I feel that Cappeau was indeed a believer, but perhaps in the way the priest who commissioned this work would have liked.

Cappeau experienced, what I can only assume, was a formative, life-altering event at a very early age.  Perhaps he had grown up in this sleepy little town, surrounded by average families and assuming that one day, like his father, he would be hammering wine casks together and plodding his trail in the family trade.  But in a moment that changed.  With the loss of his hand, and the guilt and subsequent generosity of the Brignon's, he was awarded the opportunity to explore and create his own unique beliefs.  To drink deep of the intellectual fount.  He then came to what is interestingly enough not altogether a different conclusion than what we ourselves might come to find from the teachings of Christ, some thirty years past that fateful night of his birth.  And because of Cappeau's beliefs, he was rebuked and his work tarnished.

I invoked Einstein at the start because he too was not what most of us could call a believer, but again that is not to say he was without belief.  To Einstein, God was the god of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza who, in a very tiny nutshell, believed the world and universe, as we perceive it, to be a total manifestation of God in the sense that all the natural order that surrounds us and the simplicity and harmony in which it fits and works together is in and of itself God.  Einstein believed that the study of the natural, physical world was in and of itself the most important religion, and that to lose touch with the awe and wonder that surrounds us is akin to death.

I am reminded, perhaps unfortunately, of a show called "Firefly".  It was a short-lived TV drama created by Joss Whedon that spawned a fervent fan-base and a movie, but did not survive long enough to flesh out most of its character story arcs.  One such character was known simply as Shepherd Book.  We are led to believe that he is a religious figure of sorts, but no specific religion is named and many of his actions and skillset seem contrary to what you might expect from a man of God.

Now, if you don't want spoilers, skip to the example video now.

...

In the movie, Mal returns to find the Shepherd mortally wounded and dying on a hillside.  As he kneels beside his friend, waiting for medical aid that doesn't come soon enough, Book leaves us with this:

I don’t care what you believe. Just believe it.

It reeks a bit of the dramatics, coming from a pop-sci-cowboy-spaghetti-western-in-space sort of show, and to a non-fan of the series I'd expect you might find it mere enthusiasm.

However, when I read between the lines of Cappeau's "Minuit, chrétiens", I witness the portrait of a man who believed- in what is not my place to say exactly...

But I am comforted by it just the same.



See you next Friday.

-ED


Our example today is an arrangement by the remarkable jazz composer/arranger Tom Kubis and the Maynard Ferguson protege, Wayne Bergeron crushing it on lead trumpet.






 Sources:
http://www.familychristmasonline.com/music/trad_french_carols/o_holy_night.htm
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Placide_Cappeau
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/adolphe-adam-mn0000394866/biography
http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Movies/The-Nativity-Story/The-Amazing-Story-Of-O-Holy-Night.aspx?p=3
http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/o_holy_night.htm
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section8.rhtml