A Take 6 Christmas (A Medley): SATB, a cappella Choral Octavo

Zegree captures the vocal sophistication and harmonic language of Take 6 while keeping the arrangement singable for SATB groups without requiring solo virtuosity. The medley format gives you four beloved Christmas texts in one performance, and the a cappella setting lets your voices shine without accompaniment concerns. Most importantly, this arrangement brings jazz sensibility and genuine musicality to Christmas programming, moving beyond typical holiday fare.

Moving between moments of hymn-like stillness and warm, swinging groove. The arrangement respects each melody while wrapping it in sophisticated harmony that sounds contemporary without losing the heart of these cherished texts. It's elegant and soulful at once.

This works for upper-level high school and college choirs with solid sight-reading skills and comfort with jazz sonorities. Your singers should be ready to hold independent parts in complex harmonic settings and respond to stylistic direction that moves between reverent and rhythmically grounded.

• Build clarity in the jazz voicings by establishing clean attacks and releases together; blend matters less than precision in these complex harmonies.
• Work the rhythmic figures separately before singing full sections. Many passages sit between straight and swung feels, and your rhythm section (when in unison) needs to lock.
• Let the text color your tone. "Silent Night" calls for warmth; "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" needs soul and space for expression.
• Record a section rehearsal and listen back specifically to tuning in the extended jazz chords. These voicings expose intonation issues that simpler progressions hide.

This serves well as a standalone feature in a winter concert, letting you avoid a full Christmas set while still honoring the season. It also works as a closing number after more traditional selections, offering a musical bridge to contemporary tastes. Consider performing it early in the season if you want time to develop the voicings and stylistic nuance it deserves.

• Reading and executing jazz voicings and extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths)
• Singing complex four-part harmony without harmonic movement in every voice
• Distinguishing between swing and straight rhythmic feels within a single arrangement
• Blend and balance when multiple voice parts move in different rhythmic patterns
• Tuning in extended tertian chords where traditional functional harmony doesn't apply
• Stylistic flexibility across hymnic and contemporary idioms