Ready For A Festive Irish Christmas?

Gwen Orel Reveals The Hottest CDs In Town This Christmas Holiday

Advent has started; Hanukkah started last weekend and it's been shopping season since November 23, the day after Thanksgiving. That's why Santa arrives last in the Thanksgiving parade, after all.

There are a lot of great CDs out there to give and get. Here are just a few.

Together for Christmas: A Contemporary Celtic Christmas Collection

This compilation put out by Anita Daly, of Daly Communications, showcases the artists she represents.

But it's a mistake to think of it as just a promo tool, although it does that too; some of the artists I knew, some I didn't, and the way the ones I didn't know are presented here encourages me to seek them out.

The packaging with its Christmas ornaments with Celtic knots, and pictures of family photographs, lets you in that this will be a CD that's both accessible and witty.

From its very first track "Christmas Day," by The Elders, a group out of Kansas City, the CD establishes itself as an upbeat, exhilarating selection which would be, as Black 47's Larry Kirwan says in the liner notes, "the glue that binds your holiday party, dinner or romantic moment together."

The sequencing of the CD is really masterful, moving from mood to mood so seamlessly that it would be easy to let it play over and over again at your gathering.

It's an instant must, a wonderful combination of familiar and new, upbeat and mellow.

Ashley Davis' "Nollaig Moon" is one of the best from her CD "Songs of the Celtic Winter," dreamy, peaceful, and gorgeous in her breathy delivery of a long-ago rendezvous.

Then the CD picks us up again with the grin-inducing joyous "Happy Christmas" from John Munnelly, and "Deck the Halls/Christmas Medley" from Cherish the Ladies - one of the CD's few excursions into straight trad.

No matter how tired you are, when they go into their version of "Jingle Bells," led on the accordion, you'll have a smile on your face.

Then the segue into the bluesy, cool "Whiskey for Christmas" by Kyf Brewer of Barleyjuice brings us back into a rock and roll mode, with just a little bit of whistle to remind us that this is Irish.

Then it's Emma Kate Tobia's pure soprano in "Walking in the Air," a pretty, traditional-sounding song from the movie "The Snowman"-a daring juxtaposition that works.

The next two tracks do something similar, moving from the edgy bounce of Garrett Wall and Track Dogs' "What Christmas Was Meant to Be," to the Classical rendition of "Silent Night" by The Celtic Tenors, in English and in Irish, with uillean pipes as accompaniament.

Larry Kirwan and Ashley Davis take on John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," which is a fun pairing, with his edgy, angry voice, and her sweet purity.

He takes on the angrier verses; she takes on the hopeful notes. This track appears to be an original to the compilation.

"Santa See You Tonight" is a silly, bouncy number from Minneapolis based "The Wild Conolial Bhoys," followed by a surprisingly spare "Oh Holy Night" by Damien Dempsey.

The CD concludes with a series of tracks that keep things in a party mood, with The High Kings relaxed, upbeat "Driving Home for Christmas," and a cover of The Pretenders' "2,000 Miles," a song I've always felt to be sparkly and upbeat by Dave Browne and the Temple Bar Band featuring Clare Peelo, with a kind of Irish jig on the bridge, which is fun.

Emma Kate Tobia and George Murphy take on The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," beginning slowly and becoming upbeat quickly. And it has to be said, Emma Kate's diction is more clear than you're used to in this song.

New Yorker Tara O'Grady's jazzy rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a sweet way to end the CD - mellow but not sleepy.

There will be a launch party for the CD at Klub 45 Connolly's on West 45th Street on Thursday, December 13, at 8:30pm, that will also be a fundraiser for victims of Sandy.

Kyf Brewer, John Munnelly, Wild Colonial Bhoys, and Tara O'Grady are already announced.

For more information and to purchase the CD, go to togetherforchristmas.com. The CD is also available on iTunes.

.the ollam.

.the ollam., a CD that blends the talents of uillean piper John McSherry and Millish members Tyler Duncan and Mike Shimmin came out in September.

It's a groovy, mystic rock sound that is your go-to Celtic music for people who think they don't like Celtic music.

And yes, that period is part of the title, as it is part of all of the song titles.

I'm not sure why, perhaps a workaround to keep everything in small letters, but it's a visual, unusual choice that works, and lets you know this CD is working in a realm beyond just music.

It's the aural equivalent of the cool placemats of the newest, hippest eatery.

If "Together for Christmas" is your music for your Christmas party, this is one to put on at a Boxing Day brunch for the grownups. With bloody marys and mimosas. The name was chosen to suggest the king's ollam bards in times of Irish lore, and in the band member's fancies, the CD also tells a story, inspired by the king's own ollam bards of Irish lore.

McSherry, one of the founding members of Lúnasa, that Irish instrumental band that's never been afraid to try out unusual riffs, lets his inner jazz beast wild here.

From the first tones of the electronic keyboards on the first track, ".prolllogue." (the three ls aren't a mistake, as they are repeated immediately in the track it goes into, ".the belll."), you know you're in a contemporary idiom.

Tyler Duncan and Michael Shimmin, from Detroit, play with the Irish-jazz crossover group Millish.

Duncan plays uilleann pipes, whistles, guitar, and Rhodes; Shimmin plays drum and percussion, and McSherry is on uillean pipes and whistles.

You can make out jig and reel rhythms and patterns against a rock and jazz beat.

The result is a completely seductive blend of modern and trad, rock and jazz.

The CD is made up of seven instrumental tracks. Duncan comments on the Compass records site that the songs have the "feeling of a narrative" with "verses, pre-choruses and bridges instead of the traditional Irish tune forms," and you can hear that if you listen, while also hearing the melodic repetitions of Irish melodies weaving throughout.

They do seem to tell a story, although like jazz, you're not necessarily let into the substance of the story, but there is, for example something kind of exciting when the flute of ".three signs of a bad man." gives way to angry rock, and then cuts out into a quiet guitar before finishing.

Number four, ".the devilll for my hurt.," has a syncopated, Eastern European sounding rhythm and keeps up a driving sound, before ".the follly of wisdom," led off by guitar, takes things a little happier, with an upbeat flute.

Still, my favorite tracks on the CD are the ones that are the most ethereal, like the second track, and the slow, final ".prayer for tears."

More information about .the ollam. is at compassrecords.com and hillbenders.com.

Flash Company, The Outside Track

I had an opportunity to see this Irish, Scottish, Canadian group perform when I was in Celtic Colours in October (see www.irishexaminerusa.com/mt/2012/11/27/celtic_colours.html), and picked up their latest CD.

More in the trad vein than the other two in this article, Flash Company is still a fusion of sounds, and its charm makes it a great one for the season.

In sweet songs, some with witty twists, and accomplished instrumentals, the CD puts a smile on your face as it seamlessly weaves different trad styles.

Norah Rendell is Canadian, Mairi Rankin, of Beolach, is a Cape Breton homey, harper Ailie Robertson is Irish, as is guitarist Cillian O'Daliagh and accordionist Fiona Black is Scottish.

It's not an all-female band, thanks to Cillian, but it's hard to escape a kind of lovely, mildly feminist slant to the selections.

There are no female victims on the CD, led astray by charming rovers.

In fact, there is at least one song about a female leading those rovers astray. What can I say, that makes me smile.

It opens with Canadian Norah Rendell, who sings lead vocals, and also plays flute, on

"False Knight on the Road," a song about a small child meeting the devil that always seemed to me to have a kind of Solstice vibe about it. I'm only familiar with Maddy Prior's version of it; here it's a little more swingy and upbeat.

"The Body Parts Set" shows off Ailie Robertson's harp, keeping things mellow, until the second tune brings things off to more of a driving beat, with Fiona Black's accordion taking over.

The title song "Flash Company" is my favorite on the CD - an older woman looking back on her early, wild days.

You hear a lot of versions of this from the point-of-view of guys, often having turned into maudlin drunkards asking Mairi a Stor to lay them down.

Here, the singer is rueful, but the song is upbeat and not self-pitying at all:

"Tie a yellow handkerchief in remembrance of me
Wear it around your neck, my love, in flash company.
Flash company, my boys, like so many more
If it hadn't a been for flash company
I'd never have been so poor."

Heh.

Grrl power.

Cape Breton fiddler Mairi Rankin takes the bridge, playing a tune that alludes to Jerry Holland's slow air "My Cape Breton Home."

The late, great fiddler Jerry Holland is also alluded to in "Fishcakes and Brandy", an original tune by British Columbian fiddler Daniel Lapp, who wrote it as a tribute to him. It's a gorgeous, hummable waltz that begs for instant replay.

Because of the Scottish and Nova Scotia connection, there are tunes you wouldn't hear on a straight Irish band: strathspeys, for example, such as the ones played in the set "The Testimonial," which then conclude with an Irish reel, "The Donegal Tinker," which liner notes tell us the band learned from Cathal Hayden's solo album.

There are also original tunes, including Mairi Rankin's lovely jig in "Petit Sarny." Rankin is one of the best fiddlers out there, I think; if you have a chance to see her, go at once.

More of that fusion appears in the aptly named "The Transatlantic," which includes Scottish and Irish reels and jigs.

Other songs on the CD include the pensive "The Hawk and the Crow," in which birds compare the meaning of their plumage, and the sly "Whitby Maid," about a girl who scams passing sailors, in collusion with her dad.

Overall, this is without doubt one of the more satisfying trad CDs you'll pick up this year, with strong instrumental, smart songs and a youthful energy that keeps the music airborne. Here's hoping we get to see them in New York soon.

Gwen Orel runs the blog and podcast New York Irish Arts