Jesse Crawford - Organ & Chimes for Christmas

Jesse Crawford and his Organ & Chimes for Christmas fall squarely into a generation divide that pretty much generates one of two responses:

"What the hell is this?" or,
"Oooh, this sounds like what church sounded like at Christmas."

For those who opt for the first, you may as well stop as this will not get any better. As to the second option, let's be honest those who think this sounds like church likely only ever saw the inside of a church through old movies.

For me, I'm sort of caught in a weird place where I can't listen to this and not conjure up images of the nude organ player from Monty Python or insert a terribly inappropriate voice over to the music that in my head sounds like a southern baptist preacher with a lisp who sounds a bit like Peter Lorre mixed with Ernest P. Worrell.

However, then there are times I'll feel warmly nostalgic and remember the midnight Christmas Eve services from my childhood where before the service the organist would play carols.

Jesse Crawford himself was quite an accomplished player. Born in 1895, he first gained notoriety accompanying silent films in the 1920s before he moved into recording. He was a self taught musician and it wasn't until the early 1940s that he took formal lessons. Some of his classmates at the time were George Gershwin, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller among others. He himself would become a teacher.

This particular album, Organ & Chimes for Christmas is another of my Pickwick releases, and as with their other reissues there is no date on the record or jacket. I suspect it was likely from the early 70s, but it's a crap shoot to be honest.

The copy I found was still in the shrink wrap and thankfully it hadn't adhered to the cover. The record itself was in really decent shape, and while there are some pops here and there, it doesn't detract from the experience.

The original recording was likely released in 1957, which feels about right. It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when the Hammond organ, and before that the Wurlitzer organ in theatres was the epitome of cool.

If you were wondering, the little voice over didn't keep going on, eventually the music just moved into the background and became a comforting sound that helped to soothe my morning ... no, really. There is something weird, strange and oddly comforting listening to this collection of hymns and standards with the occasional click and pop that just feels like Christmas.

Jesse Crawford passed away at the age of sixty six in 1962.

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