Wise Guys Octet - The Magi Are Coming (2019)

Christmas carols are a type of popular song that in the ss. XIV-XV ascended from the villa to the court. Thus, at that time "cultured" music was made that came from popular songs. Over time and with the commitment of the Catholic Church to monopolize artistic and cultural production, it happened that the profane and banal letters (many of picaresque or mocking) were replaced by others no less banal but religiously themed (what is called "Contrafact" or "parody"), due to the success and roots of some melodies. The work with these Christmas carols, on the one hand, has been to return the profane, and reinvent some of the stories they tell and on the other to use melodies that are also part of our musical culture (both the performer and the public).

This way of treating the repertoire is common in jazz, as mentioned above, and is an approach to all types of audiences, even those who don't know the style. It is in fact very common that jazz players from any part of the planet end up sooner or later dedicating part or all of their musical production to their home cultures, which multiplies the nascent sub-styles of jazz, enriches those cultures and disseminates the proper way of creation.

Therefore we can say that the "Wise Guys Octet" is today the only jazz octet in the world that makes a repertoire of Andalusian and Castilian folk carols.