Menu chosen?  Check.  Good silver retrieved from storage?  Check.  The music?  Not to worry: there's still time to burn a holiday soundtrack for the Day of Food and Football.

Songs of praise, songs of homecoming, and some hints of winter all fit the mood of Thanksgiving Day.  So do the relatively few jazz recordings that feature the influence of American Indian music (or even Amerindian musicians themselves).  Such music serves to remind us of the holiday’s origin: Europeans joining with the country’s only true Native Americans to celebrate the harvest, as a symbol of the cooperation that then existed between those peoples.  If the tunes here have the added benefit of providing a soundtrack for your own feast, so much the better.  (And if you want something a little more lighthearted for your dinner music, check out the musical menu in my earlier Thanksgiving playlist, which first appeared last week.)

John Coltrane, Dear Lord: A beautiful song in the truest sense of “giving thanks.”  And you’ll never find true spiritualism more sincerely rendered than in the music of Coltrane.  

Les DeMerle, Snowfall: Even if global warming delays the white stuff for a while, this classic tone poem should provide an appropriately cozy backdrop.

Judy Roberts, This Time of the Year: The sassy ex-Chicagoan, on piano and vocals, getting into the Yuletide spirit just a day or so early.

Charlie Christian, Roast Turkey Stomp: It’s really the tune better known as “Seven Come Eleven.”  But on one of Christian’s few live recordings, it showed up with this title; so it has to show up here.
 

Gateway Trio, Homecoming: The high-powered lineup of guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette offers a freewheeling celebration of getting together.

Joe Lovano, Thanksgiving: A hard-driving 1991 performance from Lovano, who throughout the 90s was the tenor of his time.

Oregon, Witchi-Tai-To: Amerind saxophonist Jim Pepper (see below) adapted this from a peyote song his grandfather taught him; he added the irresistible hook, and the acoustic quartet Oregon recorded this best-known of several covers.

Jim Pepper, Caddo Revival: Several jazz musicians have had Native American genes, but Pepper was the first full-blood American Indian to make a name for himself – originally as a fusion pioneer in the 60s, and then by mixing jazz with his Kaw and Creek heritage.

Freddie Hubbard, Suite Sioux: The great late trumpeter was at his peak in the late 60s, when he pushed the hard-bop idiom into fusion territory on the album Red Clay and came up with this gem.
 

Gigi Gryce, Smoke Signal: On this 1955 recording, saxophonist Gryce led an all-star lineup of then-young Turks.  It included the exemplary bassist-composer Oscar Pettiford, who honored his three-quarters Indian heritage (Cherokee and Choctaw) in the title of this tune.

Jon Gordon, Thanksgiving: A fitting 1995 track from one of the best alto saxophonists you’ve never heard of.

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, With Malice Toward None: The innovative hard-bop trio left their trademark vocalese on the shelf for this homey paean to the holiday spirit.

George Winston, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: It’s played by the king of sleepy semi-jazz piano, sure; but the song was written by Vince Guaraldi, who composed the music for those great Peanuts specials, and it’s so solid that even Winston almost swings.

Wycliffe Gordon, Amazing Grace: A closing prayer from the hard-blowing trombonist and keeper of the swing-jazz flame.