Ramblin' with Roger

On the calendar: Ask Roger Anything

naming the weeks

Christmas and Kwanzaa are always right next to each other on the calendar. But this year, Chanukah (Hanukkah) “starts at nightfall on December 25, 2024, and ends with nightfall on January 2, 2025, beginning on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev, and lasting for eight days.” I happen to love holidays that have movable dates. Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Easter, and even the Monday holidays have different dates.

I spent more time than it was worth trying to answer a question somebody posted on Facebook. We have names for the months of the year and for the days of the week. Why don’t we have names for the weeks? It’s primarily because of the quirky nature of the calendar.

Even if we did name them, what would they be called? November 2nd to 8th could be election week, and November 22nd to 28th could be Thanksgiving week. But that doesn’t work for two good reasons. There are only 13 days between them, and they’re way too specifically American. Starting on the equinoxes or solstices is problematic because they aren’t the same worldwide.

I’ve concluded that weeks are just not meant to be named, although if you have some ideas, please let me know. It must be a system that applies to multiple countries, cultures, and religions or eschews them.

The ask

Whatever holiday you celebrate, you can provide a present: Ask Roger Anything. Roger loves this present. This is the time of the year when you let him know what you’re thinking about. You will likely ask him questions that he had not thought of asking himself.

Running a daily blog involves talking to oneself, so having you talk to him is much more enjoyable and far less schizophrenic.

Whatever you ask, I will endeavor to respond in the next several days. I’ll even promise to tell the truth; it may not be the WHOLE truth, but it’ll be pretty close.

You may leave your questions in this blog’s comments section, on my Facebook page (Roger Owen Green), or on my BlueSky page (roger green.bsky.social); always look for the duck.

My favorite Christmas music?

Oíche Chiúin

My wife suggested I post my favorite Christmas music. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I know what that is. Sure, a song from A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi should be on it. But which one? Linus and Lucy seem so obvious. Maybe I’ll put the whole thing.

Kelly always gives me an eclectic array of music during his Daily Dose of Christmas, including music I’ve never heard. The Nutcracker will be included somewhere.

Listen to Coverville 1515: A Very Coverville Christmas Volume 20.

Here are songs I manage to play every year. I have all of them in some physical form.

A list

Christmas Wrapping – the Waitresses. Except for this song. Even though I own this on a vinyl EP, it slipped from my memory for a while.

What Child Is This – Vanessa Williams. From A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 2 (1992)

The Mistletoe and Me – Issac Hayes. A STAX cut.

Jingle Bells – Fab 4. Because tomorrow never knows.

Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday – William Bell. It was a minor soul hit on the Stax label in the mid-1960s.

Louisiana Christmas Day – Aaron Neville

Getting Ready for Christmas Day – Paul Simon. Simon is sampling (!) a sermon from 1941, the year he was born.

Christmas Is a Comin’ – Leadbelly. I have this on an LP my father owned.

The Wexford Carol – Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss

Every Valley Shall Be Exalted – Lizz Lee & Chris Willis & Mike E. from Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration

Christmas All Over Again– Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers from A Very Special Christmas 2 (1992)

Winter Snow -Booker T. & The MG’s. Isaac Hayes wrote this melancholy STAX tune.

White Christmas – The Drifters

Silent Night (Oíche Chiúin) – Enya. It’s one of my favorite versions of this song.

The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder

The Bells of Christmas– Julie Andrews (at 17 minutes). There are at least three other versions of this song by her on these Firestone albums, but this, by FAR, is the best.

Sing we all with one accord

A king is born, glad angels say

Roger singing, Trinity AME Zion Church, age 6

There’s a song from my childhood – my sister Leslie remembers it too – that I can’t seem to find on YouTube.

I think these are the words:

Now sing we all with one accord

on Christmas Day in the morning

The tidings of our glorious Lord

on Christmas Day in the morning

something something glad tidings bring

oh sing Noel in the morning

A king is born, glad angels say

oh sing Noel in the morning

Sing we all Noel.

The tune: Low means below middle C, the 2 or 3 is the number of beats. The lowercase b is a flat sign.

low G C2 G F2 G Eb2 D C2

low Bb low G2 C C D lowBb C3 C3

Leslie reminds me that it was done as a round.

No, it’s NOT this: Now We’ll Sing with One Accord

Or this: Now Let Us All with One Accord

Or this: Sing We Now Of Christmas

And definitely not this: I Saw Three Ships

I don’t specifically remember when we sang this. It was probably in high school, although it could have been in junior high. I’m hoping that one of my former Binghamtonian choristers can shed light on this question because it’s driving me freaking nuts. And I don’t mean chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Meanwhile

I came across a few other tracks:

Gaudete – Steeleye Span. Last year I bought a box set of Steeleye Span

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – PICARDY

E’en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come. My choir sings this Paul Manz piece almost every Advent. Unfortunately, I missed that particular Sunday, having seen Rebecca Jade with Dave Koz in New Haven the night before.

Duke Ellington – Three Suites

Tchaikovsky; Grieg; Ellington/Strayhorn

Ah, Three Suites. I just noticed that Edward Kennedy Ellington was born 125 years ago in Washington, D.C., and died 50 years ago in New York City.

What reminded me was the fact that, earlier in December, Kelly posted a “recomposed, orchestrated” version of the Nutcracker Suite by Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) performed by Ellington c. 1960. I had link ed to this myself back in 2013. My favorite movement is the last one, Arabesque Cookie, which also appears on the soundtrack to the 1992 film Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett.

It’s part of a compact disc called Three Suites, released in 1990. The second suite is Peer Gynt Suites Nos 1 And 2 by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907). Ase’s Death is particularly touching.

The third suite is Suite Thursday by Ellington and longtime collaborator Billy Strayhorn.

I have this CD, and I love it. Listen here or here.

The Magical Sound of ‘The Nutcracker’

This article from the New York Times, The Revolutionary Sound at the Heart of a Holiday Classic, is great fun. “Listen to how Tchaikovsky uses the celesta in ‘The Nutcracker,’ unleashing the potential of the instrument to signal playfulness and fantasy.”

Here’s The Nutcracker that Kelly posted in 2023.

MJ, as in Michael Jackson

jukebox musical

My wife and I went to Proctors Theatre on Wednesday, December 4th, to see the touring company of the Broadway musical MJ. We had planned to attend the following weekend, but a more intriguing offer arose.

I thought it was funny when several dancers were working out on stage, and some people behind us complained. “Why are they stretching now? Why didn’t they do that backstage?” They didn’t recognize that this was part of the actual show, as I had suspected. “Five minutes before Michael!”

It isn’t easy to separate the show from what one already knows about Michael Jackson, and I know a lot. The trick about these so-called jukebox musicals is that you can’t just have a whole string of songs together in a “then he sang” order.

For instance, I thought Michael’s mother Katherine, who was supportive without being harsh, was involved in one of the early great performances, singing I’ll Be There with Little Mike and contemporary Michael. Here’s a guide to the songs.

It’s like the 1992 Dangerous concert that MJ and his troupe were preparing for. You have to have a narrative flow. Michael was an artist with a vision who never wanted to hear “No.” Everything had to be bigger and better, even when it didn’t make sense financially.

A different Joe Jackson

The production made much of this, rooted in his never-satisfied father, Joe, who pushed his sons to form what became the Jackson 5. He could see that Michael had the greatest potential for success. Joe was a failed musician who put his dreams aside in favor of factory work and raising a family of nine. He was living through Michael, and he could be brutal to his son. You can’t live on your laurels.

The MTV reporter who hung out around the rehearsal intimated some of the rumors about Michael sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber, getting plastic surgery, and bleaching his skin. Michael mostly sidesteps them.

Possibly the most interesting feature is that the same actor plays the guy playing his father and the guy playing his manager, and sometimes, they blend together in Michael’s mind.

Ultimately, I think it was a decent musical, although I thought the first half of the Lynn Nottage script was much stronger than the second.

I was reading someone’s comment that the main character (Jamaal Fields-Green) occasionally disappeared. Many interviews I’ve heard featured that high-pitch, fairly monotone vocal pattern.

I enjoyed the show for what it was, though I was happy that songs were unfamiliar to some of the audience so I could experience the performers. The MJ tour continues through August 2025.

Mildly off-topic: Unreleased Michael Jackson Tracks Discovered in Abandoned Storage Unit