“In the Bleak Midwinter” often appears on Christmas recordings. But Christmas is only a couple of days after the first day of winter. What’s up with that? By my reckoning, midwinter is around the first of February.

Speaking of Christmas recordings, got a couple more this year. Somehow I missed the fact that the amazing guitarist Tuck Andress recorded a CD of Christmas music in the early nineties… so I got that. Also, I heard a small sample of  a recording entitled performed by Christmas Music from Medieval Hungary by Anonymous 4 and thought that, like the review blurb on the album cover, it was “sublime.” So I got that, too.

Speaking of sublime, the other night I watched some of the Crossroads Festival 2010 DVD that I got for Christmas. The first track on disk 2, “Midnight In Harlem” by the Derek Trucks/Susan Tedeschi Band, is just wonderful. Other highlights include Jeff Beck‘s performance of “Hammerhead” and “Nessun Dorma” (yes, the Puccini aria from Turandot). I was also pleased with Eric Clapton’s performances with Steve Winwood — playing with his old friend and collaborator brings out the best in old EC. (Check out “Voodoo Child” if you’re so inclined…)

Since last posting here I’ve been busy with the usual stuff… playing at the Club Fox jam and at Stan Erhart‘s “killa jam” at the Old Princeton Landing as often as possible, and played a few gigs as part of the thrown-together jazz combo at the Turtle Bay Seafood & Grill restaurant in Foster City.

I hope that 2011 will be full of great things — more and better gigs, maybe I’ll finally get one of my recording projects moved forward, and of course more great stuff to listen to (like the soon-to-be released David Binney CD, Graylen Epicenter, with sax maestro Chris Potter and guitar wizard Wayne Krantz.