No, I will not be donning my Santa hat whilst crooning over a cup of eggnog by the hearthside. For one thing, I hate eggnog. For another, anyone within earshot would hate my crooning even more than I hate eggnog.

That said, when Jw threw down the gauntlet for an RPM Holiday Challenge, I knew I was on board, and I knew almost as quickly which song I would butcher lovingly render in my own inimitable style. “Greensleeves” has been a standard of jazz musicians for decades (my favorite renditions being John Coltrane’s classic take along with Vince Guaraldi’s treatment for A Charlie Brown Christmas), and perfectly bridges the gap between a straight-ahead jazz treatment and holiday schmaltz. Since my solo music has been drifting in a jazz-ward direction lately anyway, it seemed a perfect fit.

It’s still in an extremely embryonic stage right now, but since I’ve made some progress despite the overwhelming odds of my “lifeload” (“workload” doesn’t cut it) in November in general and this November in particular, I just wanted there to be publicly documented evidence that I’ve made it this far, just in case I fail to stagger across the finish line.

So, here you go…

[audio:http://blog.room34.com/wp-content/uploads/underdog/greensleeves-02.mp3]