Almost Christmas – Eddie Higgins & Roger Schore

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.

Arranger Don Sickler wanted to take advantage of the presence of the talented musicians in the jazzleadsheets.com studio shortly after he returned from the 2015 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, so he wrote an arrangement for Lena Seikaly and Kanoa Mendenhall to perform.

We're sure you'll find watching and hearing two very talented new artists interpreting this new song inspiring. It's actually the first time the song was ever sung in a performance!

Arranger's note from Don Sicker:
When Lena told me she felt B-flat was her key for Almost Christmas, I played it through in that key and realized after the first four measures the root movement moved from E to A to D to G, the open strings of the double bass from bottom to top. I love the openness of just bass with the melody, and with open string roots I couod also create some double and triple stops to help establish the chord movement under the melody.

I actually wrote two different voice/bass duo arrangements, one for a slower tempo (which I've just discussed) and one for a more medium tempo, emphasizing a linear approach. Kanoa came over to my studio and read through both for me. She said she really liked the slower, more difficult one. The way she played it for me, it definitely had her name written all over it. She also came up with a few delicious additions and alterations to my arrangement, so the credits also state: Edited by Kanoa Mendenhall.