Almost Christmas – Eddie Higgins & Roger Schore

Eddie Higgins' original composition, Moonlight On Kinkakuji, was an instrumental which Eddie recorded with his trio in 2009. Like others of his compositions, particularly those representing Japanese scenes such as Shinjuku Twilight, the melody is perfectly singable. It attracted the attention of lyricist Roger Schore years ago, and luckily he finished his lyric in time for a semi-finalist in the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute Jazz Vocals Competition, Lena Seikaly, to visit the jazzleadsheets.com studio and team up with pianist Cecilia Coleman and young bassist Kanoa Mendenhall. Together they explored three different ways to approach this destined-to-be-a-classic Christmas song, demonstrating its flexibility and giving you the opportunity to create your own memorable holiday event.

Check out the first video performance above. It's a joyous trio treatment, two and one-half choruses. After the first chorus, piano and bass split a chorus before Lena spins out the rest of the story.

Then click on the second video, the voice and piano duo performance: it's an ad lib lullaby treatment, one and a half choruses, returning to the bridge after one exposition of the melody; there are no solos here but be aware these changes are quite rewarding to solo over. Here's an audio clip: clip

Click on the second album cover above for Lena and Kanoa's voice/bass duo clip.

The form, with 12-measure A sections and an 8-measure bridge, makes room for a lot of cyclical chord motion. The fifth to eleventh measures of the A section resolve in a big circle of fourths from E to B♭, with the first four of these chords all major sevenths. The melody arpeggiates the chords in this cycle, alternately up and down; this motion is reflected in the lyrics by a triple rhyme. The bridge contains four II-Vs, ascending in minor thirds; the melody also ascends.

If another key would be better for you, send the key you'd like to Don and we'll post the transposition on the website for purchase. If you're not sure which key is best, send us your range and we'll work with you to figure out the best key.

The original, instrumental version of this song, Moonlight On Kinkakuji, is named after a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto and was recorded on Eddie's last album, "Portraits Of Love," from 2008. When lyricist Roger Schore, a longtime friend of Eddie's and of his wife Meredith d'Ambrosio, heard this recording he was inspired to write a Christmas-themed lyric. As Roger writes, "I would say that I am a lyricist who works in the jazz field, seeking out attractive themes that can, with the right lyric and exposure, become popular songs. Upon hearing that piece of music, I had the impulse to try and write a lyric for it. For whatever reason, the music and arrangement summoned up images of winter, snow and christmas. The title Almost Christmas arrived with that initial hearing. Over the years, I would take out my legal pad with the title on top, play the trio's recording, write down a few ideas and try out a couple of lines. By the fall of this year (2015), I decided to knuckle down and finish the lyric. I had by now the opening line (okay, it's the title repeated twice) along with the final "A" section [C in the lead sheet] and coda. As the triple rhyme scheme in the last section seemed to fit, I decided to see if I could work it into the other "A" sections. In other words, I worked backwards, finishing the ending first and then jumping back to the beginning. After I completed the lyric, I showed it to Meredith who approved it and who went so far as to place a call to Don and Maureen Sickler of Second Floor Music, Eddie and Meredith's publisher. And here we are!"

Note from Don Sickler:
When Roger brought his lyric to our office, I had earlier in the week returned from L.A. and my role as Artistic Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition. That's where I first met and heard vocalist Lena Seikaly. Less than a week later, I was handed a great Christmas lyric to a beautiful Eddie Higgins composition. I looked at the calendar, thinking, "It's only November 20, not even Thanksgiving yet. Why don't I send it to Lena and see what she thinks of it?" Well, she loved it. Plus, she was open December 1-3 and could come to NYC (she lives in the Washington, D.C. area). I told her to let me make a few phone calls and see what I could come up with. To make a long story short, on December 1 she arrived here, and that evening we captured three different performances of the newborn Almost Christmas. And now, on December 8, we're making them available on jazzleadsheets.com. I hope you will enjoy the music and the performances of these marvelous artists.