Dan Gabel is well suited for Christmas music. Many of our ideas about what Christmas should sound like originate in the big band period of the ’40s and the music of the ’50s and later that continued to lean on that sound to create timelessness and wholesomeness. He seems to recognize how well his big band, the 18 piece Abletones, fills that niche. Among the band’s offerings, you can book a full fledged Christmas variety show complete with skits. The sort of thing that originated on radio, flourished in black and white, and continued to bring nostalgia to TV audiences into the 1980s.
That stage show is available to stream on Gabel’s Bandcamp page. For $9.99 you receive a link to watch the show, a seven page PDF, and extensive liner notes about what you’ll see. Happy Holidays features Dan Gabel’s 18-piece big band, joined by the Moon Maids vocal group, and by Elise Roth, who was profiled in our April 2022 issue. Titles including “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve,” and “Let it Snow” were arranged by Gabel. A swinging version of “The Nutcracker Suite” features a ballerina.
This was not Gabel’s first rodeo. An earlier audio visual enterprise, available on DVD or streaming, recreates the Vaughn Monroe show of 1949. Gabel is a triple threat: a fine trombonist, a band leader with a mind for audience-pleasing production, and he has a voice that is simply draw-dropping in its ability to channel the time period. He sounds closest to Bing Crosby but there are traces of many others. For the big band era music he produces his vocals are simply the best in the business, and it isn’t surprising he is joined by equally gifted, if more thick on the ground, female vocalists. Had Gabel gotten his start in 1939 instead of 2009 he would have become a household name. Only in his mid 30s now he may yet, that is, if he pursues his side hustle dream of a political career.
In 2020 he released a Christmas album, By the Fireside, that largely seems to mirror the stage show. In 2022 he released Dance Through The Holidays, which I raved about in my column. That makes Snowed In! his third Christmas album in five seasons! In case you think he’s just a holiday crooner he has a non-Christmas album releasing in January titled Let’s Get Away From It All. There were also several albums in the 2010s. You can buy 12 releases, including video streams of both stage shows, and the upcoming album, all for $99 using the discography option on his Bandcamp page—entertainment for days. There are still CDs available for most of his albums and the new release will have a limited edition of 100 vinyl copies; pre-order now if you want one.
Kimberly Hawkey joins Dan Gabel as a vocalist on Snowed In!, as well as on the forthcoming release. She is his match for period vocals. They are her own, the vocals of someone singing at the same time as the greats, not trying to channel them.
Likewise, this is not your typical Christmas record. Assuming your guests aren’t audio engineers, there are few who would suspect this wasn’t an album from the late 1940s, or at least a band far closer to the period trying to emulate that sound. Tracks include “The Christmas Song,” “The Man With The Bag,” “Boogie Woogie Santa Claus,” and “Happy Holiday,” that last in the original style of Bing Crosby’s Holiday Inn.
This is definitive Christmas music, full of feeling and joy, brilliantly conceived and executed, soulful and pleasing. I reviewed an AI generated Christmas album this month. While sadly there are Christmas albums that, eventually, artificial intelligence may get the best of, Snowed In! is an example of what AI, and indeed most genre musicians producing a Christmas album, can never capture. The Christmas radio stations should be incorporating this album into their mix, as should Spotify and the other streamers many households now turn to. This Christmas album, and his others, are of the sort a family could enjoy as their private treat for decades to come. Dan Gabel is a generational talent born four generations too late. We are lucky to have him.
