No Tune like a Snow Tune

Cognizant of our responsibility to provide playlists for seasonal change, we offer these suggestions for snowy, wintry listening:

"Snowfall"--theme for the Claude Thornhill orchestra, a unit that included such innovative arrangers as Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan. "Snowfall" is a lovely, Impressionistic piece, which might have come out of the Ravel-Debussy-Bix Beiderbecke period.

"Winter Moon," a little known Hoagy Carmichael song, best on a 1952 Pacific Jazz recording arranged by Johnny Mandel, with Hoagy singing, and the impeccable Art Pepper opening with a long alto saxophone solo as chill and clear and pure as an icicle.

"Sleigh Ride"--Art Pepper again, this time with Richie Cole. A romp over the snow, with pianist Roger Kellaway cracking the whip, and bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Billy Higgins powering the sled.

"Midnight Sleighride"--a version of "Troika" from Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kiji Suite," reworked by the Sauter-Finegan band. Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan, two of the top orchestrators of the big band years--Sauter primarily for Benny Goodman, Finegan for Tommy Dorsey--led one of the most eclectic and adventurous bands of the 1950s, a precursor of today's Pink Martini.

Happily, all of these tracks can be tracked on the Internet. The most entertaining, visually, is Sauter-Finegan's "Midnight Sleighride," with Finegan playing the part of the horses.