Lena Seikaly (2015 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition semifinalist) is the voice behind jazzleadsheet.com's newest holiday video "Almost Christmas." With a beautiful voice singing a melody as timeless as any of your favorite holiday classics, this is the song you'll want to add to your repertoire!
Eddie Higgins composed the instrumental version of this song, Moonlight On Kinkakuji, named after a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto. It was recorded on Eddie's last album, "Portraits Of Love," in 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. "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." He finished his lyric just in time for Lena to visit the jazzleadsheets.com studio and team up with pianist Cecilia Coleman and 18-year-old bassist Kanoa Mendenhall to record this memorable holiday song.
This is the latest video from jazzleadsheets.com, a website geared to inspire, educate and supply a new generation of jazz artists with historical as well as current, innovative music. With a captivating performance by rising talents, Almost Christmas is sure to be a new Christmas standard! Especially if you add it to your Christmas repertoire! Of course, Eddie's composition is great for instrumentalists, too.
Stay in touch; we plan to add more holiday titles in the next few days. Enhance your December gigs with new arrangements!