Though his discography includes two excellent albums, Bella Piano (2013) and Homecoming (2021), Ed Bazel has given the new age genre a true feel-good story these past few years with his highly acclaimed, much accoladed breakthrough albums The London Sessions (2022) and The London Sessions: New Perspectives from Studio 2 (2024).
Recording these at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, where the inspiring and encouraging ghosts of The Beatles and other legends abound, was for the multi-talented pianist/composer the musical equivalent to one of his other longtime vision board achievements – hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro. For obvious conceptual reasons and branding purposes, Bazel’s triumphant path from watching The Fab Four on Ed Sullivan at age seven to recording in one of their hallowed spaces was definitely a narrative force on both projects.
Each collection included two Beatles classics, the first featuring “In My Life” and “Yesterday” and its follow-up including stellar interpretations of “The Long and Winding Road” and “Imagine” (okay, that one’s an iconic post-Beatles hit, but why nitpick?) While those songs served to capture our attention, it was Bazel’s beautiful original pieces and his graceful touch on the ivories that will make these albums endure.
Beatle historians will note that while John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” and Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” are like aural holiday comfort food on radio playlists every year, The Beatles as a unit never recorded a Christmas album. Which means that Ed Bazel, recording once again in the same space, has out-fabbed and out-holidayed the Fab Four with his soulful, gracefully soothing, warm and charming new collection The Christmas Sessions: Season’s Greetings from Studio 2. It’s definitely to his credit that while gifting us with the gorgeous, gently charming and deeply passionate, classically influenced original “Christmas Time Is Coming,” he resisted the temptation to include pretty piano interpretations of either of John or Paul’s enduring solo holiday hits.
Featuring ten very familiar holiday tried and trues from canons both secular (Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song,” Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmastime is Here”) and sacred (“Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Silent Night,” “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” etc.), these sweetly and tenderly “Bazelized” pieces offer cozy fireside meditations that fulfill the pianist’s simple goal as stated in his thoughtful liner notes. Offering his fans and new listeners alike a celebration of the season, “it is my hope that this album will become a beloved festive soundtrack as you create new cherished traditions with your loved ones. I hope this album adds meaning to your holiday celebrations, bringing joy to your home this year – and for many years to come.”
Trying to explain just how such straightforward, no frills and relatively brief piano interpretations of classics we’ve heard a million times can capture the heart like it’s the first time we’ve heard them is a bit like attempting to capture on film the divine glow of an angel in flight – or understand the mysterious they understand and work with us to help us through hard times. It's really the same logic defying, soul embracing feeling that has drawn piano fans (including myself) to the multitude of Christmas albums by Jim Brickman, David Lanz and Danny Wright these past decades.
Perhaps we can attribute our personal experience of Bazel's music to the sparkling touch and slow tempo on the ivories he brings to beloveds like “What Child Is This,” “Away in a Manger” or the closer “We Three Kings.” Our hearing hearts can also thank our lucky star of Bethlehem that the pianist and his producer Alex Carter infuses his subtly nostalgic collection with the glorious complementary caresses of Louis Anthony deLise’s dreamy string and wind arrangements and harmonic spotlights for John McMurtery (flute), Vivian Barton Dozor (cello) and Nina Vieru (violin). It’s very soft-spoken, but discerning listeners may also pick up deLise’s mallet percussion on “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and “We Three Kings”) and Carter’s (on the same instrument) on “The Christmas Song.”
Yet however we choose to quantify the magic of The Christmas Sessions on a technical level, what matters is how it makes us feel this time of year, whether things are joyful or melancholy. Let’s just say some things in life – like the Beatles music, like Abbey Road, like everything Ed Bazel does – are just divinely inspired.
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