Christmas Music: Enduring Classics Pt. 1

I own way too many Christmas CDs! At last count, I think I had well over 80 Christmas CDs…and this does not even count the albums I have on vinyl, or a growing pile of compilations I’ve made or that I’ve received from others. And yet every year, most of the albums sit gathering dust, since I only choose a select few to play. Am I just burned out on it all?

No, I don’t think so. If you think about it, there are very few Christmas songs, in comparison to tens of thousands of songs that we are familiar with. What’s different about holiday music is how many versions there are of individual songs.

There was a lull in new holiday music for a spell in the 70s and 80s, but in the present, there are actually way too many new ones coming out. It seems that anyone who calls themselves a singer attempts to do something new and different, but just ends up making an album where the initial excitement wears off after the first couple of plays. Many of today’s releases are by low- or no-talent hacks who have no business attempting holiday classics.

True holiday classics have endurance. I look at the albums I pull out year after year, and many of them are classics I grew up with, or older recordings I’ve only recently discovered. However, even in older recordings from the 50s, 60s or older, you could still find some songs that were apparently recorded for novelty only. That’s pretty much true with any type of music.

I was attempting to put together a list of holiday favorites that I pull out to play most years, and out of well over 100 total holiday recordings in my collection, I can really only come up with maybe a dozen or so that I really consider personal “classics”. And those even include a few more recent recordings that have proven to be yearly favorites of mine. In no particular order, here are some holiday favorites I’ve enjoyed over the years.

Herb Alpert & The TJB: Christmas Album — This was just remastered and reissued in 2005, but I’ve listened to this one since I was three years old. No holiday is complete without it, and while I have four copies on CD, I still prefer to pull out the LP and give it a spin. Alpert’s arrangements breathe new life into some familiar holiday chestnuts, and even does a vocal turn on “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle”, the lone Christmas song penned by Burt Bacharach.

Various Artists: Something Festive! — You won’t find this on a CD (hard as I wish for it), but it features an assortment of tracks from many of A&M’s artists. If you still have a turntable, this one is not too difficult to find in the used record bins. (It was part of a promotional tie-in with B.F. Goodrich.) Featured artists include Herb Alpert & The TJB, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, Liza Minnelli, Baja Marimba Band, We Five, Burt Bacharach, Pete Jolly and Claudine Longet. I created my own expanded version on CD from other A&M recordings, and filled it out to over 65 minutes of music. Included are “Little Drummer Boy” by J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding (aka “JJ&K”, or “K&JJ”, depending on the album), the two Carpenters songs “Merry Christmas Darling” and the ballad version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”, Wes Montgomery’s “Greensleeves”, the Baja Marimba Band version of “Las Mananitas” (which is a traditional Mexican “happy birthday” song; the TJB has a nearly identical version on their Christmas album), a rare Claudine Longet B-side “I Don’t Intend To Spend Christmas Without You”, Miguel Rios’ hit “A Song Of Joy”, the Canadian Sweethearts “We’re Gonna Stand Upon The Mountain”, and a couple of TJB tracks to fill it out. I am still looking for a Shawn Phillips song called “A Christmas Song” which was issued only on a rare A&M 45 RPM single, along with a copy of Charles Bevel’s “Black Santa Claus”. Far as I know, this would wrap up the last of the A&M Christmas tracks I’ve been searching for.

John Pizzarelli: Let’s Share Christmas — This one has been out for a couple of years, but since I’ve enjoyed Pizzarelli’s other recordings quite a bit, this one has spent a lot of time in my player during the holidays. John Pizzarelli is a guitarist and vocalist, son of legendary jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. John is best known these days as one of the finest interpreters of the American songbook, and his recordings have included either his smaller combo or, occasinally, a big band. This holiday recording has both, with Pizzarelli’s crooning and guitar setting the mood. Very nice!

Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas — No holiday is complete without watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special, or listening to this album! The best sounding version happens to be a Fantasy label first-pressing LP, but good luck trying to find one! The CD versions don’t sound all that good–the master tapes, having been used so much, have deteriorated. For that matter, the CD I purchased around 1984 or 1985, mastered by George Horn, sounds a little better than the recent hybrid SACD version. If you want to hear some of the other songs Guaraldi has done for Charlie Brown specials, also grab the Holiday Hits CD.

Carpenters: A Christmas Portrait — Musically it is very nice, and the sequencing is just about perfect, presented as an entire program rather than a randomly thrown together collection of songs. My favorite version is the LP version. The story behind it is long and convoluted, but the original LP version only exists on CD as a German import released in the 80s. Later in the 80s, A&M released a CD with this title that took songs from the follow-up An Old Fashioned Christmas album and combined them onto one disc. The current 2-CD set, Christmas Collection, has both albums in their original sequence, but they had to be remixed from the multitrack masters since the two-track masters had deteriorated to the point where they could no longer be used. I’d recommend the 2-CD set, if forced to choose…

Brian Setzer Orchestra: Boogie Woogie Christmas — Rockabilly guitar meets swingin’ big band! This one is a lot of fun, and guaranteed to put some excitement into your holiday gathering. I had to assemble my own “ultimate” version of this album, though. I bought the original CD when it came out. The next year, four different retailers had versions with a different bonus track available at each store; I lucked out and got the “Luck Be A Lady” 5-song EP from Japan that had the title track plus the four Xmas bonus tracks in one place. Last year, yet another version was released for Target, with two new bonus tracks on it…so I had to grab that one also. Setzer also did a few tracks to a forgotten movie called “Jingle All The Way”, which featured Setzer’s big band with vocals by Darlene Love and Lou Rawls. Finally, the guitar instrumental CD, A Merry Axemas, had the instrumental version of “Jingle Bells” on it. So at the end of it all, I ended up with a 21 track CD. I don’t yet have it, but I’m also getting Dig That Crazy Santa, his 2005 holiday release, once I get a chance!

That wraps up some of my favorites for now. I’ll add more in a second installment!