In seeking to give this carol a swing recharge, I chose to recall the drumming of Gene Krupa. It is his drumming that is featured in his very own distinctive way in the hit Sing, Sing, Sing by the Benny Goodman Orchestra of 1936 and still popular to this day. Jock McKenzie.
Masters (Sing, Sing, Singing) in this Hall or its alternative title - Nowell, Sing We Clear, is a French Christmas carol with words written around 1860 by the English poet and artist William Morris to an old French dance tune. The carol is moderately popular around the world but has not yet entered the canon of most popular carols.
Gustav Holst incorporated the carol into his work Three Carols (1916–17) along with Christmas Song: On this Day and I Saw Three Ships. Masters in this Hall is said to have a sixteenth-century feel, harking back to a simpler society, in line with William Morris's own romanticism. It also has elements of Morris's socialist beliefs, with the poor bringing news of Christ's birth to the Masters in this Hall.
The carol describes a poor man, emphasised by his rural dialect, drawing his master's attention to the birth of Christ by describing how he had met shepherds travelling to Bethlehem in solemn mood where, joining them, he had seen the Christ child in his mother's arms. The chorus repeats how the birth of Christ has raised up the poor and cast down the proud.
