A cappella jazz group take 6 Celebrates the season with a new holiday release

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year due at retail on October 5, 2010

It might be the parties. Or maybe it’s the roasting of chestnuts. Or the caroling out in the snow. Whatever the reason, most people consider the holiday season to be the most wonderful time of the year. That’s certainly the case among the members of Take 6, the a cappella group that has been mixing elements of jazz, gospel, R&B and vintage doo-wop for nearly 25 years. Winners of 10 GRAMMY® Awards, 10 Dove Awards, one Soul Train Award and two NAACP Image Awards, the group has made an indelible musical and cultural mark in the past quarter century – whatever the season.
 
Every member of this brilliant vocal team – Claude McKnight III, Mark Kibble, Joel Kibble, David Thomas, Dr. Cedric Dent and Alvin Chea – has held onto fond childhood memories of the holidays and made them a part of their adult lives. The timeless magic is very much a part of the their new holiday CD, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, a collection of seasonal favorites that are as heartwarming as a crackling fire and a festooned evergreen. The ten-song set is scheduled for an October 5, 2010, release on Heads Up International, a division of Concord Music Group.
 
The primary objective in the making of the album was to create a sense of familiarity, says McKnight, who founded Take 6 in the ‘80s with some classmates from Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. “We wanted all the songs on this album to be the kind that people would hear and say, ‘Oh, yeah, I sing that at Christmas time,’” he says. “We each picked songs that we sing with our families every year at the holidays… We just wanted to make a record that would, for most people, just put out a really cool, all-around Christmas vibe.”
 
Mark Kibble, who arranged six of the album’s ten tracks, focused on keeping things simple, yet incorporating some of the harmonic spin that has become the Take 6 trademark. “The basic idea was to just let the Christmas melody ring through, and present it in a way that’s interesting but still familiar,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to bend your ear too hard to enjoy a Christmas song. It should take you right back to those early Christmases when you were a child.”
 
The set opens with the lighthearted title track, then segues into Irving Berlin’s classic “White Christmas,” which rides atop a percussive island groove arranged by David Thomas. “It definitely has a different flavor, and we loved it so much that we wanted to put it close to the top of the order,” says Kibble. “I’m just really proud of David’s work on that. He’s definitely an arranger to be reckoned with.”
 
What follows is “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” a playful romp inspired by Dr. Seuss’ animated musical tale, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Amid the well-known verses that describe the bitter mountain hermit who attempts to steal Christmas from Whoville, McKnight and Chea trade vocal riffs peppered with comical banter. “I’ve always loved that song, period,” says McKnight. “That’s my favorite cartoon of all time. It’s a fun song, and we put so much energy into it – from the arrangement to the banter back and forth. I love everything about our version of that song.”
 
Further into the sequence, the richly layered yet understated rendition of  “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” walks a fine line between the sacred and the secular. “It’s a beautiful melody,” says McKnight, “and I think beautiful melodies always lend themselves to really great vocal arrangements. I believe we hit upon that with this song.”
 
One of the most intriguing tracks on the record is “The Sugarplum Dance,” a variation on Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” (from the Nutcracker Suite) that’s equal parts jazz and doo-wop – with a smoky muted trumpet line sung by Joey Kibble. “I absolutely love the spin we put on this composition that’s rooted in classical music,” says Mark Kibble. “I think it’s simple enough, yet different enough, that it could go a long way.”
 
The album closes with “Christmas Time Is Here,” the Vince Guaraldi composition made famous in the classic Charlie Brown Christmas program, first televised in December 1965. The track features guest vocalist and pianist Shelea Frazier, who previously appeared on The Standard, the 2008 Take 6 release that generated three GRAMMY® nominated songs. “Having worked with Shelea before, we know she could handle anything we threw at her,” says McKnight. “When you’re doing so much a cappella with guys’ voices all the time, the overall timbre can get a little thick. But a female voice lifts the overall sound to a different level. We wanted to have a really great female vocalist, and that’s why we chose her.”
 
In the end, says Kibble, accessibility was the overriding objective in crafting these holiday tracks. “We wanted to record songs that were simple enough so that anybody listening could follow the melodies and sing along,” he says, “and yet still be ourselves and give a little bit of the harmonic backdrop that Take 6 is known for.”
 
This holiday season, when there’s much mistloeing and hearts are glowing when loved ones are near, sit back with Take 6 and enjoy The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.