I’ve neglected my blog for too long, over two months. I realize that avid readers have been waiting with much anticipation wanting to know what is going on in my life, all two or three of you.

Well truth be told, life has proven to be quite busy over the past two months, hence no updates, no musings, nothing. December and January were quite busy for Faded Pictures, so busy I haven’t updated FadedPictures.com with December’s portfolio work. It’s on the todo list, trust me.

So today, I have a short break between projects and i thought I’d catch up with a little post. Things have proven so busy recently, I’ve actually even neglected the querying process — shame, shame on me.

But I’m getting back into the game, jumping back on the horse…thinking of other metaphors…nope, I’m done.

Truth be told, first i wanted to wait out the holiday’s, didn’t want to try querying around Christmas. Then when January arrived, I was pretty busy and I told myself I was waiting for my copyright certificate from the Library of Congress. That showed up two weeks ago in the mail, I’m out of excuses, I must now query again.

As one who is a fan of the Christmas music, I thought I’d take a post to recommend a few great albums. But first, let me talk about where to go for music online. I’m a fan of iTunes, but iTunes can be limiting and expensive over time. It’s fine for that one album no one else has, but at $9.99 an album that is only okay quality (124kb) and DRM protected, it’s not really worth it.

I usually first check with the Russians. The site is called MP3Sparks.com and it’s excellent. The site is hosted in Russia and offers music for only a few bucks per album. To use the site you first buy credits, then choose your tunes and pick your format and bit rate. Depending on the quality you choose, the price can be as low as $2 an album. I usually go with the Variable Bit Rate and one of the profiles in the encoding dialog. The nice thing about the music is it’s all DRM free.

Second, if the Russians don’t have what I’m looking for I go to Amazon.com and their new MP3 Download section. Amazon doesn’t quite have the Russian pricing, but they are a bit cheaper than iTunes. The upside to Amazon is that they offer higher quality files than iTunes and they are all DRM free mp3’s.

Usually if an album is new and not widely popular, the Russians won’t have it yet, so I opt for Amazon. If Amazon doesn’t have it that usually means I have to bite the bullet and go with iTunes, but you gotta check the other sites first.

So with the where out of the way, let’s get onto some recommendations. First, Dave Koz did a Christmas album several years back that is a really good Smooth Jazz album called A Smooth Jazz Christmas. It’s got a lot of nice instrumental pieces, Koz is a saxophonist, with a variety of other Smooth Jazz artists like David Benoit, Peter White and Rick Braun. I just picked up this 2001 album when looking at Koz’s new Christmas album, which has a lot of the same songs. A Smooth Jazz Christmas seemed to get better reviews than his new one, so I went with it instead. One thing iTunes is good for, reviews.

Another great Smooth Jazz album is Boney James’ Christmas Present which was released this year. Boney James is also a saxophonist and on Christmas Present he collaborates with the likes of Anthony Hamilton, Angie Stone and Rick Braun. It’s a great, mellow yet festive Christmas album.

Okay, because I can’t resist, here are a few more great Christmas albums. If you like piano with a little soul check out Brian Culbertson’s A Soulful Christmas. An older album, but a great one is from the Rippington’s frontman Russ Freeman and it’s called Holiday.

If you’re not a Smooth Jazz fan, you might like The Brian Setzer Orchestra’s A Boogie Woogie Christmas. Maybe your more of a classic Jazz fan, then Diana Krall’s Christmas Songs album which came out last year is a must have. So too is Steve Tyrell’s This Time of Year, which unfortunately is not available from amazon as a download or the Russians. I believe iTunes has it though.

Hopefully that should be enough tunage to help feed your Christmas musical fix, if not, I have more…don’t get me started.

While driving to the store the other day, a thought occurred to me. Given that Catholicism is really into the Virgin Mary (bit of an understatement, I know), why aren’t there more Christmas songs about her, for her, to her?

I know Ave Maria is popular during this time of year, but that’s about the only song I can think of. Are there others I don’t know about?

I’m not saying we need more, please, don’t misunderstand me, just a simple observation.

I mean, aside from Mary in the nativity scene there’s not even a lot of Christmas chotchkies with her depiction, no Santa and Mary, nothing. I’m thinking that Mary Christmas chotchkies could be the next form of Indulgences that the Catholic Church could get behind. See what I did there, Mary Christmas instead of Merry Christmas? This could even be the gold mine the church needs to pay off the abuse lawsuits. Just a thought.