There’s something a little disconcerting about listening to a
\nChristmas album on the first day of fall… but we won’t go into
\nthat right now.<\/p>\n
There’s also something disconcerting about listening to a new
\nage Christmas album like
\nThe Gift<\/i> from Jim Brickman. You see, each person has their
\nown idea of what proper Christmas music is. As a child, my view of
\nChristmas music was the Harry Simeone Chorale and the music boxes
\nof the late Rita Ford. As I grew older, I found myself enthralled
\nwith the
\nWinter’s Solstice<\/i> discs from Windham Hill, showing just how
\nbeautiful both Christmas and new age music could be.<\/p>\n
So, what’s disconcerting about
\nThe Gift<\/i>? It’s just that, whether it’s fair or not, I find
\nmyself holding this album up in comparison to the first two
\nWinter’s Solstice<\/i> discs. Thankfully, Brickman has crafted an
\nalbum which holds its own quite well.<\/p>\n
The first release from the romantic pianist to feature vocals on
\nmore than one track,
\nThe Gift<\/i> takes both old standbys and new compositions to
\ncreate a holiday album that tries to do something that most
\nChristmas albums don’t: it aims for the emotional side of
\nChristmas. “Starbright” brought back memories of when I first heard
\n“Tiny Angels” from Roger Whittaker, and it can easily bring a
\nlistener to tears as they remember the nervous anticipation
\nchildren have on the night before Christmas. It’s an incredibly
\npowerful piece of music that still moves me – even though, as this
\nis written, there isn’t a Christmas decoration to be seen in my
\nhouse. And if you want a song that captures the optimistic mood of
\nhumanity, just listen once to “Hope Is Born Again”. There’s a lot
\nyou can take from this song… and I’ll leave it up to the listener
\nto find their own message.<\/p>\n
In terms of instrumentals, Brickman is able to create a
\nnatural-sounding balance between his piano work and richer
\ninstrumentation than he’s had on any album previously. Tracks such
\nas “Joy To The World,” “Angels” and “What Child Is This” allow
\nBrickman to place his own signature on each song without
\ndistracting from the basic core of the holiday classics. In terms
\nof originals, songs like “Fireside” and “Winter Peace” keep with
\nthe basic tenet of any Brickman composition – in fact, these would
\nnot sound out of place on any of Brickman’s non-holiday albums. But
\nthey do succeed in creating a mental picture through the music,
\ntransporting the listener to a holiday scene in their own
\nmemories.<\/p>\n
It may seem odd that I’ve mentioned nothing about “The Gift,”
\npossibly the best-known song on
\nThe Gift<\/i>. To be frank, the song speaks for itself. There’s a
\nreason so many radio stations play this one – and it’s yet another
\nsong that would not be inappropriate outside of Christmas.<\/p>\n
It may also seem odd that I’ve not brought up the guests on
\nThe Gift<\/i>, like Collin Raye, Kenny Loggins, Point Of Grace,
\nSusan Ashton and many others. While their contributions make these
\nmoments that much more special, they are not the stars of this
\ndisc. For that matter, I’d dare to even say that Brickman isn’t the
\nstar. In truth, the music is center stage this time around – which
\nis just how it should be.<\/p>\n
\nThe Gift<\/i> is a wonderful holiday album that might just find
\nits way into your CD player at other times in the year – and why
\nnot? As Angela Lansbury once sang, “we need a little Christmas
\nnow.” This is as fine a way to grab some of that spirit when you
\nneed it the most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6407],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37176","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jim-brickman","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37176"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37176"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}