The Story Behind The Christmas Album…
In one afternoon in early January (in two and a half hours to be exact), we recorded our first complete Christmas Album. It had been on my mind for a little while - I *love* Christmas music and we had just wrapped a full month of nonstop holiday gigs so the rep was in our fingers. We did a reduced ensemble this time around: Brian Slawta on viola, Trevor Kazarian on cello, Joel Negus engineering + jumping in on bass for a few tracks (and me).
When it comes to arranging/creating scores from familiar tunes, we usually work from lead sheets or piano-vocal scores, and just try to keep it interesting. I’m really so impressed with Trevor and Brian’s creativity in particular - I might end up with lead melodies a majority of the time, but it’s honestly the unique textures they find that always make these familiar covers feel fresh and beautiful.
On January 9, we recorded at Joel’s fantastic studio (complete with a couple of visits by the Cleveland Heights fire department lol). And, like our debut album, every track was done in 1-3 takes… not exactly conventional recording etiquette, but somehow befitting with our fast-paced performance life. We used Joel’s space, the gorgeous Heights Theater, as our first album’s location, as well - the room is always full and reverberant. I then promptly forgot about the project as we approached wedding and events season in spring, 2024.
Fast forward 6 months and we decided to blitz and get this out the door. I remembered in late August that we hadn’t actually settled on final mixes for the tracks so I sent Joel a quick text - it was really feeling like a forgotten project at that point. Trevor did a deep listen, Joel worked quickly to get edits done, and then I gave Elijah Bisbee a call sometime in September, I think. If there is one person I’ve met in Cleveland who can guide a project like this from start to finish it’s Elijah. He laughs when I say it, but it feels like he really is a kind of Sherpa. Licensing, distribution, cd and sleeve orders, Spotify art/digital assets, “what even is mastering,” etc etc etc. We couldn’t have released our first album without him, and he was truly the secret weapon to getting this next project out in the world before Thanksgiving! He not only knows each step of the process intricately, but he’s acutely aware of timelines and knows which deadlines we need to meet first. Speaking of mastering, we settled on Cleveland icon Jim Stewart this time around - he did really fantastic work giving the tracks a final clean-up and the entire album has a cohesive feel. Thank you, Jim!
Oh! That cover art with the Christmas tree made of herbs? That would be Elijah just strolling to his backyard one afternoon and gathering whatever he still had growing, arranging it, and taking a quick pic. Perfection.
We released on streaming platforms this past Friday, November 15, and CDS arrive in the mail in the next few days. My daughters are eagerly waiting to help me splatter-point the cd sleeves - another fun holiday-season craft in the works! Just waiting on the CDs to decide on the final sleeve color combo…
To all y’all, happy early holidays and Merry (early) Christmas! Hope these tunes bring you as much joy as the creative process brought us. We are very happy with this one!
🎄
Ariel
