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It's An Ed Palermo Christmas! God Bless Us, Everyone!

Ed Palermo

Label: Sky Cat Records
Released: 2026
Views: 106

Tracks

Opening Narration; Viennese Musical Clock; Let's Make the Water Turn Black; How Can I Be Sure This Is Candy's Room; Narration "Stellar Performance"; God Bless Us, Everyone!; I Believe in Father Christmas; Little Drummer Boy; Sofa/Away in a Manger; Candy's Room/Cruisin' for Burgers (reprise); Toads of the Short Forest; Christmas Carol; A Christmas Song; Narration "Rootny and Scrootny"; Rootny and Scrootny, the Christmas Babies; Dustin's Lullaby; Narration "Mike James"; Dominick the Donkey; Narration "Tiny Toy Soldiers"; Tiny Toy Soldiers; Nut Rocker; Ending Narration; I Believe in Father Christmas (reprise).

Personnel

Ed Palermo

saxophone

The Ed Palermo Big Band

band / ensemble / orchestra

Charley Gordon

trombone

Christopher Olness

trombone, bass

Bruce McDaniel

guitar and vocals

Matt Ingman

trombone, bass

Mike Boschen

trombone

Bobby Spellman

trumpet

Augie Haas

trumpet

Ronnie Buttacavoli

trumpet

Barbara Cifelli

woodwinds

Ben Kono

saxophone, tenor

Bill Straub

woodwinds

Phil Chester

woodwinds

Cliff Lyons

saxophone, alto

Katie Jacoby

violin

Bob Quaranta

piano

Ted Kooshian

piano

Paul Adamy

bass

Ray Marchica

drums

Additional Personnel / Information

ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS: Robbie "Seahag" Mangano - guitar Dave Riekenberg - tenor sax John Bailey - trumpet Steve Jankowski - trumpet Tim Sessions - trombone Sara Jacovino – trombone

Album Description

For more than thirty years, Christmas performances have given Palermo and his big band a setting in which seemingly incompatible repertoire can belong to the same program. On It’s An Ed Palermo Christmas! God Bless Us, Everyone!, that tradition becomes a recorded statement: holiday standards, Frank Zappa, progressive rock, classical repertoire, Palermo originals, narration, family memories, and musical jokes are brought together through his arranging voice. The result is less a conventional Christmas collection than a portrait of how this band hears the season—irreverently, affectionately, and with few stylistic borders. A brief Opening Narration leads into Zoltán Kodály’s Viennese Musical Clock, followed by Frank Zappa’s Let’s Make the Water Turn Black (Ed Palermo’s Misfit Band), featuring Bruce McDaniel on vocals. How Can I Be Sure This Is Candy’s Room? then brings together Bruce Springsteen’s Candy’s Room, Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati’s How Can I Be Sure, and Zappa’s Cruisin’ for Burgers. A short Narration – “Stellar Performance” resets the sequence before the first Palermo original. God Bless Us, Everyone! turns toward the album’s more personal side. Palermo connects the piece with cherished Christmas memories, establishing an emotional thread that returns throughout the record. I Believe in Father Christmas, associated with Greg Lake, Peter Sinfield, and Sergei Prokofiev, features Bruce McDaniel on vocals, while Little Drummer Boy places Nina Hennessey at the vocal center. Sofa / Away in a Manger joins Frank Zappa with the Christmas hymn tradition and features Robbie “Seahag” Mangano on guitar. Candy’s Room / Cruisin’ for Burgers (Reprise) revisits material from the earlier mashup, with Katie Jacoby featured on violin. Zappa remains part of the vocabulary with Toads of the Short Forest, featuring Phil Chester on soprano saxophone and Nina Hennessey on vocals, before the sequence returns to Palermo’s own writing. Christmas Carol, written more than forty years ago and given new life here, features Ben Kono on oboe. Ian Anderson’s A Christmas Song, sung by Bruce McDaniel, continues the connection between Christmas repertoire and the progressive-rock language that has long been part of Palermo’s arranging world. Narration – “Rootny and Scrootny” introduces Rootny and Scrootny, The Christmas Babies, Palermo’s composition for his daughters Molly and Sally and one of the clearest links between the album’s humor and its family history; Charley Gordon is featured on trombone. That family thread deepens in Dustin’s Lullaby, written in memory of Palermo’s nephew and featuring Ben Kono on oboe. Narration – “Mike James” then leads into Dominick the Donkey, with Mike James on vocals, returning the record to its comic side without separating it from the more personal material that precedes it. The closing stretch continues that movement between playfulness and orchestral reference. Narration – “Tiny Toy Soldiers” introduces Darius Milhaud’s Tiny Toy Soldiers, followed by Nut Rocker, credited to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Kim Fowley and featuring Ted Kooshian on tack piano. Ending Narration prepares the final return to I Believe in Father Christmas (Reprise), bringing the program back to music heard earlier in the sequence rather than ending with a separate grand statement.

Across the album, Palermo’s originals and arrangements give the broad repertoire a common identity. The humor is unmistakable, but it does not stand apart from the record’s more tender material: the same program that accommodates Zappa, Springsteen, Kodály, Milhaud, Tchaikovsky, and holiday standards also makes room for Palermo’s memories of family, loss, and Christmas tradition. That balance between the unpredictable and the deeply familiar is what ultimately gives It’s An Ed Palermo Christmas! God Bless Us, Everyone! its center.

Album uploaded by Michael Ricci