Holidays on the harp

Reviewed December 2007

An all-instrumental, all-acoustic outing, this album mostly tackles trad holiday fare ("We Three Kings," "Bring a Torch," "Greensleeves"). Many of the tracks have a non-traditional opening, perhaps playing off a secondary theme rather than the refrain. Once the players (in addition to Frankfurter's harp, there are violin, pennywhistle, dulcimer, recorder and more) get into the meat of the main theme, though, the arrangements are pretty much straight-ahead. Fans of the various Windham Hills holiday releases are likely to enjoy this CD as well.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).