(White) Christmas Eve w/ Joe Pass Edition

I always liked the quiet on Christmas Eve. The part after the night’s festivities are done, before the welcome chaos of the morning. When you’re a kid it’s all about the anticipation. When you’re an adult, sometimes it can feel like it’s all about damage control.

But, the quietness of the night before, it’s always in my head.

Add this one to the list of songs I’ll be thinking of tonight. Add this to the list of songs I’d like to learn this arrangement of, even if I won’t get to it (tonight, at least).

Joe pass by himself is something special. The guitar turns into a piano. Maybe even an orchestra. But it’s six strings and 10 fingers with a whole lot of “how does he even do that?”

And I find it very peaceful. Not just because it’s one of my favorite Christmas songs, but because - listen to the layers of it.

It swirls around the “I’m.” It tells you where it is first, but then “dreaming of a” and the optimistic lilt of “white Christmas.” Before the ramping of “just like the” onto the nostalgic platform of “ones,” and the quiet step down of “I used to know.”

Only Pass doesn’t even need the words to tell it.

Perfect song writing. Peaceful songwriting. Irving Berlin captured the spirit, and Joe Pass is putting it all on display.

It almost sounds like a dream. It floats in the air. Just like snow.

Just. like. snow.

Enjoy some peaceful, merry, and bright quietness tonight - from my family to yours: