“Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”—Gerry Mulligan & Dave Brubeck

As we approach Christmas, we have to include "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" in our Sunday Classics.

On the day Kentuckian songwriter James "Haven" Gillespie (1888-1975) brought New York composer J. Fred Coots (1897-1985) the lyrics to "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town," and the latter came up with the idea for the music in ten minutes, neither of them could have predicted the sale of a half million copies of the sheets music of their song by the end of the year.

The song was introduced for the first time to a nationwide audience by performer Eddie Cantor when his Sunday 8-9 p.m. NBC radioshow was broadcast in early November 1934.

By Monday morning there were already orders for 100.000 copies of sheet music to this brandnew song.

Already starting in the first week after the broadcast, lots of other singers advertised they would be singing this new seasonal song in their variety shows.

Newspapers reported on kids loving the song because they really believed the lyrics that Santa would know if they'd been bad or good.

And advertisers in November and December 1934 also picked up on the "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" title of the song to announce their Christmas sales.

Sit back and enjoy this musical duet between pianist Dave Brubeck (1920-2012) and bariton saxophonist Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996) and have a nice Sunday.

I'm gonna put Thisbe Vos' "A Jazzy Christmas" album on again, and try to be good for goodness sake.