Trombone Shorty "O Holy Night"

The Life Is Good Festival happens in Canton, MA this weekend. So this week's blog posts feature artists appearing on the bill.

What great musical artifacts get lost due to the failure of the TV shows they appear on?

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip seemed like a winner of a show, on paper. Written by Aaron Sorkin in his first post-West Wing TV effort. Starting Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry. A Saturday Night Live like setting. It should have worked, right? But it didn’t. It was canceled after one season.

It had potential. It had some compelling storylines, like the one on the Christmas episode about how the house band on the show had members calling in sick on purpose, to give out-of-work, displaced-by-Katrina musicians some work. The episode culminates with the New Orleans musicians invited to perform a horn-ensemble version of “O Holy Night.”

It’s beautiful. And if the show had been a hit, I bet the song could have become a perennial holiday favorite.

But mostly it’s forgotten, save for the likes of me and skip2myLouO. (jump to the 2:10 mark for the song)

You can find a free download of this song on this blog.

Trombone Shorty performs this weekend at the Life Is Good Festival.