we three kings
In 1998, we recorded our first CD as a group. A veteran engineer, the redoubtable Tim Gressler, approached the Protagonists and wondered if we were interested in doing a Christmas album. We jumped at the chance.
The idea was to create the kind of excitement that rarely happens on modern CDs. Tim set up a few vintage microphones in the hall, and we adjusted ourselves in relation to them and each other, to get the best sound, and then we went off. Live without a net. Direct to two-track: no re-mixing, no fake reverb.
The night in question turned out to be one of those nights: a comedy of errors that wound up in some great and loose improvisation. When we arrived in the hall to do this session, there was a concert going on. Schedule mix-up. So we went out for tacos and came back later; by that time the air conditioning was off.
The entire session took just over 2 hours. We simply played these songs -- usually only once or twice -- for our friends. You can hear Misti saying "Yeah, Greg!" at the end of a solo, you can hear us laugh and respond to each other.
You can even hear us putting together an arrangement on the fly: I assert an idea for an intro, and Greg, trying it, says, "yeah;" just as we're counting it off Darren mutters, "It's kinda cheesy," but we bam into it anyway and the whole song sounds fresh and new.
All in all, eleven reimaginings of Christmas songs old and older: a hard-swinging latin chant (o come o come emmanuel), a groovy spiritual (go tell it), a tropical chorale (good king wenceslas), and more. A night of improvisation, when we took some classics and made them our own.
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Some one minute samples:
- WE THREE KINGS
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- the title track, and the beginning of our album-long journey to the manger, starting from the rather groovy east. not that we're all that wise or anything.
- JINGLE BELLS intro
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- yanked into the peppy swing of a favorite protagonists tempo.
- SILVER BELLS more
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- darren suggested that we do this with a bossa beat. i thought he was crazy, but man, it worked.
- GOD REST YE MERRY, GENTLEMEN
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- greg norris, ladies and gentlemen! what a bass player. very swinging.
- CHRISTMASTIME IS HERE
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- well, you can't have a christmas album without it. makes us feel all wintry and cozy.
- WENCESLAS
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- again, an idea of darren's, to do this with a tropical beat. he's playing with "sticks" he made out of bunched bamboo.
- O COME O COME EMMANUEL
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- yeahhhh. this may be the best thing on the CD. the solemness of the ancient latin chant and its cry for salvation led us to a very deep meditation in swing.
- GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN
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- a classic gospel tune given the ramsey lewis treatment. we think that there always ought to be one song that makes you want to do the snoopy dance, and this is it: a song of celebration.
- SILENT NIGHT
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- something about the melody reminded barry of the simple meditative themes of erik satie, so he started limning this 3/4 tempo, and we discovered that it really captured the intimate beauty of the song.
- CHESTNUTS theme
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- one last fave here, this time done with an unaccustomed snappiness.
- DRUMMER BOY development
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- our finale, featuring -- naturally -- darren kuper playing an unusual groove in 5/4 time, with his hands on the drums. as we symbolically arrive at the manger, we've got to give the gift we can give: in this case, our noisy tribute to the kid who changed the world.
