Three Christmas music reissues from classic artists. Credit: Amazon.com
Frank Sinatra, "Christmas with Sinatra and Friends": A very laid-back album with a lot of familiar voices -- the "friends" are Mel Torme, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett with Bill Evans, and Ray Charles and Betty Carter. This is almost Christmas comfort food, with Sinatra singing favorites like "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "The Little Drummer Boy," but with some lesser-played tunes like "Mistletoe and Holly" and "An Old Fashioned Christmas."
Tony Bennett delivers a stunning vocal on "A Child is Born," with beautiful, shimmering accompaniment from pianist Bill Evans. Clooney takes on "White Christmas," and Mel Torme sings the song he co-wrote, "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)." You also get Ray Charles and Betty Carter singing, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which brings me to the next album.
Ray Charles, "The Spirit of Christmas": Charles' take on Christmas is expectedly funky and soulful, backed as he is by a brass section led by Freddie Hubbard. "What Child Is This" turns into a band feature a couple of minutes in, a medley of different Christmas tunes sneaking into the chart in between solos. "The Little Drummer Boy" gets the country soul treatment, Charles Fender Rhodes piano mingling with a swelling pedal steel guitar and an unusual horn arrangement. "Rudolph the red-Nosed Reindeer" gets a funky facelift with a classic Ray Charles groove.
There are a few melancholy, contemplative moments like "That Spirit of Christmas." But the clear draw is the bonus track, "Baby It's Cold Outside," one of the best renditions of this oft-covered staple. Charles is at his most lecherous ("Listen to that fireplace rrrrrroar"), and Betty Carter is the perfect, luminous balance.
Johnny Cash, "The Christmas Spirit": Cash's album is, not surprisingly, the most solemn and religious of these three reissues. Cash wrote or co-wrote four of the twelve songs here, including the spoken-word title track, about keeping the Christmas spirit in a foreign land, far from your family. He wonders while mingling with tourists in the Holy Land if the baby Jesus looked like his own baby the day he was born and wakes on Christmas morning with the spirit as a chorus sings a traditional "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
There are only three songs here that could be considered standards -- "Blue Christmas," "Silent Night," and "The Little Drummer Boy," and Cash bends those to his own style (especially his reworked verse arrangement of "Drummer Boy"). The spotlight is on the birth of Christ, a subject that Cash writes and sings about with solemn passion. (Note: Amazon lists this as an import, but I found my copy at BJ's for $4.99).
