Tuesday, December 05, 2006

New Orleans Christmas tribute on Studio 60

The December 4th episode of US TV drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was great for a lot of reasons. It paid off a bunch of stuff, it set up a bunch of new stuff and it rewarded all those viewers who've stuck through the show during some iffy initial episodes. But the best moments came in the final four and a half minutes when a clutch of displaced jazz musicians from New Orleans - real musicians, not actors - played a simple, fresh and utterly heart-wrenching arrangement of the Christmas carol Oh Holy Night.

Apparently there are plans to make it available via iTunes in the US, though grud know when we'll be able to buy it over here. In the meantime, the wonder of YouTube enables you to see the scene in question. If you like it as much as me, you can donate to the Tipitina's Foundation. That's a charitable organisation offering relief for musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina and also runningn projects like donating musical instruments to schools in the Big Easy.

If you haven't seen the episode, there is a spoiler amid the dialogue but quite frankly the music is so gorgeous that's a small price to pay in my humble opinion. You're all grown-ups, right? You can decide whether or not to watch. Anyway, here's the scene from Studio 60 - enjoy.

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