The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra

AN AARDVARK CHRISTMAS

(9 Winds)

This 25-year-old big band, founded by composer/trumpeter/Methodist minister Mark Harvey, takes a typically offbeat look at the season. Not surprisingly, given their generally avant-garde outlook, the result has an African feel. Their "What Child Is This?" recasts "Greensleeves" with as much Coltrane as English folk song. "I Wonder As I Wander" is Appalachian folk given a deep spiritual reading by vocalist Donna Hewitt-Didham. "The Virgin Mary Carol" goes calypso. The African-American spirituals ("Go Tell It on the Mountain," "Sweet Little Jesus Boy") bathe Jerry Edwards's vocals in dark themes from brass and reeds. From here, the instrumentals turn more brooding and cacophonous, agitated by percussive cross-rhythms and given voice by declamatory reed solos (on the 15th-century French Advent hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," as well as Harvey's original "Gloria in Excelsis Deo"). A New Orleans-style "Jingle Bells" makes for a lighthearted finale. If you can forgive the crude production, the disc is an emotionally satisfying musical pilgrimage. (Aardvark play their 25th annual Christmas concert this Sunday, December 21, at Old South Church. Call 442-9322.)

- Jon Garelick

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