Music is an essential part of Christmas and with that time of year fast approaching, I thought I’d offer a look at some records that might enhance our enjoyment of the season. These are all personal favourites; most, but not all, are jazz-oriented. Hopefully there’s something here for all tastes, from the religious to the secular, for those who like their Christmas music straight and those who like it, well…not so straight. To organize things a bit, I’ve arranged the selections into four loose categories:
JAZZ INSTRUMENTAL
Three Suites – Duke Ellington. One of the three suites is Ellington’s adaption of a holiday staple, The Nutcracker, to his unique musical world. While he and Billy Strayhorn remain quite true to the original, the highly individual voices of such Ellington veterans as Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Harry Carney, Ray Nance and Lawrence Brown cast Tchaikovsky’s score in an entirely new light, to say the least. The majestic swing of the Overture is especially thrilling; as far as I’m concerned the Christmas season hasn’t begun till I’ve heard it. As an added bonus the other suites are Grieg’s Peer Gynt and Suite Thursday by Ellington and Strayhorn, after John Steinbeck’s novel Sweet Thursday.
A Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi. A delightful essential for the inner kid in all of us. Linus and Lucy, Christmas Time Is Here and other favourites from the timeless cartoon are all here, but the strongest track is still the jazz treatment of O, Tannenbaum by Guaraldi and his trio-mates Monty Budwig and Colin Bailey.
Christmas Cookin’ – Jimmy Smith. From 1964, this features Smith’s funky and high-octane organ in a program of festive songs with a powerful brass ensemble of New York’s finest, arranged by Al Cohn and Billy Byers. It’s one of the more ebullient and hard-swinging jazz Christmas albums, as you’d expect with Kenny Burrell, Art Davis and Grady Tate in the rhythm section.
Have Yourself a Soulful Little Christmas – Kenny Burrell. Duke Ellington’s favourite guitarist acquits himself gracefully in this 1966 album with a large band directed and arranged by Richard Evans. Originally on Cadet, it was reissued as a CD by Verve a few years ago.
Merry Ole Soul – Duke Pearson. This beautifully recorded 1969 Blue Note is one of the most crisp and fresh-sounding of Christmas albums, but is unfortunately hard to find. Pearson was an incisive, light-toned pianist who also functioned as an in-house arranger, composer and producer for the label and here he presents a marvellous integrated program with a very cohesive trio using his favourite bassist and drummer – Bob Cranshaw and Mickey Roker. There are some uncommon tunes and a highlight is their surprisingly unhurried and lyrical treatment of Sleigh Ride, with the leader alternating between celeste and piano on the melody, and some interesting open vamps that are quite reminiscent of Ahmad Jamal’s classic 1950s trio.
Holiday Soul – Bobby Timmons. Another great festive trio record, with the iconic hard-bop pianist, bassist Butch Warren and Walter Perkins on drums and percussion. It’s almost impossible to find, because as far as I know it’s never been issued on CD, but it turns up occasionally in used vinyl bins. If you see it, buy it – it’s worth having for Perkins’ deft handling of sleigh bells alone and it grooves from start to finish.
Paul Desmond & The Modern Jazz Quartet. Not a Christmas album per se, but a fortuitous recording of the MJQ’s Christmas Day concert at Town Hall in 1971 – an annual affair, but with Desmond sitting in after the intermission that year. Greensleeves is the only piece with any Yuletide connotation, but the musical interplay between Desmond and the MJQ, playing together for the first and only time, feels like the birth of something special.
Big Band Christmas – Rob McConnell & The Boss Brass. Some wonderful McConnell arrangements, by turns zesty and sensitive, beautifully performed by his great band. A highlight is a heartfelt version of Johnny Mandel’s A Christmas Love Song. Also priceless is the cover photo of Rob dressed as Santa Claus.
And...Fans of big-band jazz might also enjoy A Merry Christmas! by Stan Kenton and five Christmas albums by the USAF’s first-rate big band, The Airmen Of Note – Noel, Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, Christmas Time Is Here, A Holiday Note From Home and Cool Yule. Half of the first and third and all of the second comprise charts by the brilliant Mike Crotty, one of jazz arranging’s best-kept secrets because he spent 26 years in the military. He now lives in Arizona and works as a freelance composer-arranger. These are available for listening at: rewindplay.com/airmenofnote/sounds/sounds.htm.
VOCAL
Christmas Songs by Sinatra Recorded during Sinatra’s early association with Columbia and musical director Axel Stordahl, it’s just his third album as a leader. The CD reissue expands the ten-inch, 1948 LP with bonus tracks from both before and after the original sessions. His better-known A Jolly Christmas on Capitol from 1957 is also very good, but I prefer the freshness and restraint of the earlier record.
12 Songs of Christmas – Etta James. Although the repertoire is firmly seasonal, this 1998 effort is about as close to a pure jazz record as the powerhouse R&B singer ever came. This is largely due to the excellent band of stalwarts including Red Holloway, George Bohannon, Cedar Walton, John Clayton and the immortal Billy Higgins.
A Swingin’ Christmas – Tony Bennett and The Count Basie Orchestra. I first heard this in a record store while Christmas shopping a few years ago and enjoyed it so much I bought it right on the spot. From 2008, well after Basie’s death, but otherwise there’s nothing not to like about it. Bennett, the band, the charts and the soloists all sound terrific and it swings effortlessly. Sold.
Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas This one is relentlessly upbeat and some of Frank De Vol’s writing veers toward the schlocky, but who cares? It’s ELLA and she’s infectious and irresistible, particularly on Let It Snow, where the warmth and purity of her voice bring an unfettered joy.
Christmas with Dino – Dean Martin. I wasn’t expecting much from this one, but it’s a very solid merging of two Martin albums – A Winter Romance, done for Capitol in 1959 and The Dean Martin Christmas Album, done for Reprise in 1966. There are some interesting seasonal repertoire choices here, such as I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm, A Marshmallow World and Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Often forgotten over the years amid all the entertainer hats he wore and the endless booze jokes was the fact that Dean Martin was a very good and personable singer.
The Very Best of Bing Crosby Christmas – One can hardly do Christmas without Bing, and this is a fairly complete Decca compilation from 1942 to 1955, with a nice mixture of carols and standards including, of course, White Christmas.
A Christmas Album – Barbra Streisand. I’m not entirely a fan of all things “Bra,” but this 1967 record, tastefully arranged by Marty Paich and Ray Ellis, is very good and her renditions of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and The Christmas Song are among the best I’ve heard.
Christmas – The Singers Unlimited. Mostly traditional carols sung with immaculate pitch and ingenious harmonies furnished by Gene Puerling, the group’s leader and arranger.
COLLECTIONS
Jingle Bell Swing – An imaginative and eclectic Columbia jazz compilation with some rare Christmas oddities, including Black Xmas (To Whom It May Concern) with Miles Davis and Bob Dorough, Art Carney reciting ’Twas the Night Before Christmas in tempo with percussion, a kind of early jazz-rap. A trenchant, hard-swinging version of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer by alto saxophonist Pony Poindexter, a duet by Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock on Deck the Halls, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross singing Deck Us All With Boston Charlie and a 1965 re-record of Claude Thornhill’s classic Snowfall by The Glenn Miller Orchestra directed by Tex Beneke, which fooled me – I thought it was Thornhill’s band when I first heard it. There are other goodies too – Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman, Carmen McRae, Russell Malone, Mel Torme and two tracks by Louis Prima.
Louis Armstrong & Friends – The Christmas Collection. Another good 20th Century Masters mix, with six tracks by Louis – some with Benny Carter’s underappreciated 40s band – including Christmas Night In Harlem, Zat You, Santa Claus? and Christmas In New Orleans. You’ll also get to hear Satchmo’s take on White Christmas, Ellington’s band jamming on Jingle Bells, Lionel Hampton’s version of Merry Christmas, Baby with a vocal by Sonny Burke, and, best of all, Dinah Washington singing Silent Night, a religious experience if ever I’ve heard one.
MISCELLANEOUS
The Messiah – Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, directed by Ivars Taurins. There are countless recorded versions of this masterpiece, but this live performance from Toronto’s Koerner Hall in 2012, with soloists Karina Gauvin, Robin Blaze, Rufus Müller and Brett Polegato, is my favourite. This is how Handel intended this oratorio to sound.
James Taylor at Christmas – A lovely recent addition to the genre, with great singing, classy musicians, smart arrangements and some different song choices – Go Tell It On the Mountain, Joni Mitchell’s River, In the Bleak Midwinter, Some Children See Him, Who Comes This Night?, plus an ingenious reworking of Jingle Bells in half-time, fat-back funk-killer. All brought to a fitting close with a soulful reading of Auld Lang Syne which captures the song’s very essence.
The Bells of Dublin – The Chieftains. The greatest of Irish traditional bands with various vocal guests including Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and the McGarrigle sisters. It’s a classic - traditional, yet unconventional, and best of all, it sounds like Christmas. Browne’s The Rebel Jesus is a highlight, showing a side of Christ that’s forgotten – he was a firebrand, no cream-puff.
Finally, some favourite single-track strays which may not be in any collections but are likely available on YouTube or as downloads: Fairytale of New York by The Pogues; God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by the MJQ; the priceless 1946 version of Jingle Bells by Vic Dickenson and Leo Watson; Jo Stafford’s rendition of The Christmas Blues; the classic version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside by Ray Charles and Betty Carter; not to mention Brother Ray’s cosmic reading of Winter Wonderland. And lastly, the little-known White Wine in the Sun by Australia’s Tim Minchin, an oddly deadpan/sentimental Christmas song that touches me – it’s wryly naive, whimsical yet wise, funny and heartbreaking all at once.
To all music lovers, Mazel Tov and a merry, swinging Christmas.
Toronto bassist Steve Wallace writes a blog called “Steve Wallace – jazz, baseball, life and other ephemera” which can be accessed at wallacebass.com. Aside from the topics mentioned, he sometimes writes about movies and food.
