DIANA KRALL "Christmas Songs" (Verve) 4 stars
Canadian vocalist and pianist Diana Krall sounds perfectly at home on her first full-length Christmas album, which features the added kick of the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra on more than half of its 12 songs. What's really satisfying is how the orchestra blends in so well with Krall's insouciant, cool style, providing tasteful support and never overstepping its bounds.
"Jingle Bells" gets things off to a breezy, up-tempo start, and one can't help but smile at how Krall closes it out with the line "I'm just crazy about horses," a tip of the hat to Ella Fitzgerald's indelible 1960 version. The orchestra gets in some particularly good licks on "Let It Snow," propelled by conductor John Clayton's snappy arrangement.
Providing contrast are the laid-back, wistful renditions of Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time is Here" and the Hugh Martin/Ralph Blane beauty "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," both of which judiciously use strings for added emotional heft.
Krall drops the strings and orchestra for intimate readings of Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song" and Irving Berlin's "White Christmas." These two sound so urbane and sophisticated, they may make you drop the rum and egg nog in favor of an ice-cold Belvedere vodka martini.
â€" Martin Bandyke
VARIOUS ARTISTS "To Kate: A Benefit for Kate's Sake" (Western Beat) 3 stars
A cast of alt-country all-stars (including Buddy and Julie Miller, John Prine and the recently married Steve Earle and Allison Moorer) leads this low-sugar holiday collection, whose proceeds go to aid a 3-year-old Nashville girl with a rare genetic disorder.
There's plenty that's familiar here, including "The Christmas Song," delivered Western swing-style by BR549; Bob Dylan's "Winterlude," which gets a Tex-Mex makeover at the hands of Joe Ely; and Willie Nelson's "Pretty Paper," performed with chimes and a touch of drama by former Maverick Raul Malo.
However, it's a couple of singer-songwriter originals that ultimately steal this Christmas pageant: Jim Lauderdale's twangy "Holly & Her Mistletoe," which puts some hillbilly hurt in the holiday, and Americana artist Bob Delevante's stark "Half Bad in the Snow," a moving view of Christmas Eve in a factory town through the eyes of a lonely graveyard-shift worker.
â€" Greg Crawford
THE BOSTON CAMERATA "A Mediterranean Christmas" Joel Cohen, conductor (Warner Classics) 4 stars
For anyone tired of holiday chestnuts and kitsch, the world-class Boston Camerata early music ensemble has issued a series of indispensable thematic albums exploring Christmas music from the American past, the European Renaissance and elsewhere. The choir's latest is organized around Mediterranean climes â€" Spain, Italy, southern France and the Middle East â€" and spans 700 years, from 1200 to 1900.
The Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble of Boston plays a key role, lending earthy and evocative folk singing and traditional instrumental colors to the pristine beauty of Cohen's choir. The album is a fascinating multicultural journey, reinforcing the spirituality of the season while reminding us that the sun-baked Latin cultures of southern Europe never severed their links with the Near East.
â€" Mark Stryker
VARIOUS ARTISTS "A John Waters Christmas" (New Line) 3 stars
For years, director John Waters has sent out a special Christmas card to friends and associates; last year, a CD accompanied the card's annual perverse portrait, and that giving spirit is continued here.
The compilation definitely reflects Waters' taste for the bizarre by including stuff like "Santa Claus is a Black Man" (credited to AKIM & the Teddy Vann Production Company), which could be considered the ghetto version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," and Little Cindy's creepy "Happy Birthday Jesus."
But it primarily reveals his affection for obscure, low-fi R&B of the late `50s and early `60s, through great and forgotten seasonal singles like Stormy Weather's doo-wop "Christmas Time is Coming ("A Street Carol"); Baltimore DJ Fat Daddy's "Fat Daddy (is Santa Claus)," Big Dee Erwin and Little Eva's "I Wish You a Merry Christmas," and the Coctails' "First Snowfall," in which the melody is played on a singing saw.
â€" Terry Lawson
BRIAN WILSON "What I Really Want for Christmas" (J Records) 3 stars
What I really want for Christmas is for Brian Wilson to return to the stage with another conceptual concert along the lines of "Pet Sounds" or "Smile." In the meantime, I'll lighten up the holidays with this harmony-enriched successor to "The Beach Boys Christmas Album," which includes remakes of two novelty tunes from that album that became perennials: "The Man With All the Toys" and "Little Saint Nick."
The arrangements of traditional carols like "O Holy Night" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" are not as syrupy and over-orchestrated as the songs on the Beach Boys LP. The new songs, co-written with Bernie Taupin (the title song) and Jimmy Webb ("Christmasey"), are quite lovely. But the tracks that will grab your Christmas-morning replays are yet another "Be My Baby"-inspired Wilson original, "On Christmas Day," the Four Freshmen-tribute "Auld Lang Syne" and a doo-wopish "Silent Night."
â€" Terry Lawson
