A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is one of the best selling Christmas albums of all time. If you like west coast 1960’s era cool jazz it doesn’t get much better than the VGT. This 1966 album along with the 1965 record entitled Jazz Impressions of a Boy named Charlie Brown helped to define the legacy of this San Francisco native. Guaraldi’s 1962 album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus yielded a b-side to a 45, Cast Your Fate to the Wind, which became that rare jazz tune that crossed over to a mainstream audience. Television producer Lee Mendolson heard the song on the radio, in a taxi cab, while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and commissioned Guaraldi to score the television adaptation of the Peanuts’ comic strip. From this album I selected a song that was untitled when the trio first performed it at the Monterey Jazz Festival. The tune would later be named Linus and Lucy and is a jazz classic. The first bridge has a Latin tinge and puts the listener in the mind of Guaraldi’s days playing in San Francisco’s north beach jazz spots with Cal Tjader. While not a Christmas tune, it has become associated with the Christmas special and thus, for all the generations who've grown up with it, it is Christmas.

In the Christmas Spirit by Booker T. And the M.G.s finds these four consummate musicians doing what they do, which is putting their funky stamp on some very familiar material, in this case Christmas standards. Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Al Jackson Jr. weave their magic on this 1966 Stax Records release. The blues Christmas standard made famous by Charles Brown (no relation to Charlie Brown) Merry Christmas Baby gets the M.G.’s treatment here. This instrumental (what else did you expect) features the absolutely beautiful yet haunting guitar of Steve Cropper. It is my favorite tune on this album by one of my favorite bands.

While we are in a B3 kind of mood, why not listen to a tune from one of the hippest Christmas albums of all time, Jimmie Smith's Christmas Cookin'? This 1964 album swings hard from start to finish.  This release on the Verve label has sides recorded in New York City as well as Smith’s familiar recording haunt of the Rudy Van Gelder home studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Tracks on this record have him in the company of both of his primary guitar collaborators Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery. I chose the tune The Christmas Song which can also be found oddly enough on the double sided compilation Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of the Verve Years. This album is an absolute must if you are attempting to have a cool Yule.

As you may have figured out, I am partial to instrumental sides when celebrating the holidays. I think it is hard to hear the same songs sung over and over again, where as instrumentals seem to go down easier with repeated listening. With this in mind, our holiday jukebox makes a sharp left hand turn and is ready for The Ventures Christmas Album. This 1965 release is exactly what you think it is. If you like your holiday favorites Venturized, this is for you. Guitarist Don Wilson and Nokie Edwards along with bassist Bob Bogle and drummer Mel Taylor never let up on the fun as many of the tunes have faux opening riffs that are pulled from other Venture tunes. I chose the song Frosty the Snow Man which starts off with the familiar guitar riff from the song Tequila before dropping into Frosty...

The piano player and vocalist in guitarist Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers is the great Charles Brown. No single blues man is more associated with the holidays than he is.  Charles Brown Sings Christmas Songs is a 1961 release on the King label. In this compilation of Brown’s post war sides from his days with the Aladdin and Modern labels you will find the song that he made famous, Merry Christmas Baby.  Brown singing this blues ballad is still as good as it gets.That single yielded a b-side Please Come Home for Christmas. The irony of this is that for decades Brown was never home for Christmas. By the time this album came out, Brown’s brand of mellow, sophisticated blues with an uptown feel, fell out of favor with audiences. In 1996 he told me that for years corporate Christmas parties, society gigs and December stints in hotel lounges paid the bills. 

The Brian Setzer Orchestra’s 2002 release entitled Boogie Woogie Christmas could have just as easily been called “How the Gretsch Stole Christmas.” This album served as a launching pad for a very lucrative Christmas career that yielded a follow up album in 2005 called Dig That Crazy Christmas and The Best of Collection: Christmas Rocks that was released in 2008 and a 2010 live album called Christmas Comes Alive. His first foray into the Christmas marketplace however is still his best and there are several very good choices here but since I am partial to Chuck Berry music, I chose Run, Run Rudolph. If you like a treble heavy, whammy bar slingin’ bad boy with your big band than this record is for you. 

As it turns out the genius loves Christmas as evidenced by his 1985 album The Spirit of Christmas by Ray Charles. This Columbia album features a tune that was recorded back in 1961. The Ray Charles/Betty Carter version of the pop standard Baby, It's Cold Outside is hands down the best version of this tune that was written way back in 1936. The tune was recorded many times through the years. Notable versions include Louis Armstrong/Velma Mittleton as well as Sammy Davis Jr./Carmen McCrae. None come close to the intimacy (Betty) and urgency  (Ray) emote when singing this tune. This album is now available through the Concord Music Group.



Many of our Christmas traditions, such as Saint Nicholas who morphed into Santa Claus, have come from Scandinavian countries. So it seems particularly appropriate that the best, and in some ways original, blues album(s) to come out in years is from Norwegian guitarist Chris “Kid” Andersen. Kid put out two records last year that are cleverly entitled Red Volume and Green Volume. These albums not only feature American secular Christmas standards but some traditional Norwegian tunes bluesd up. Andersen, who is a long time Northern California resident, has many of the great players from that region of the country including Rick Estrin, Rusty Zinn, Terry Hanck, Elvin Bishop, John Nemeth, Mark Hummel, Paul Oscher and others playing on these two separate albums. I chose the tune Santa Claus is Coming to Play from the Green Volume, which features Terry Hanck on tenor sax. 



Another new millennium blues album could easily be called “Roomful of Christmas” as it features several players who have played in the venerable Rhode Island institution, Roomful of Blues. This 2006 album by Sax Gordon and Doug James is an all instrumental affair, which has the tenor and baritone sax men in the company of fellow Roomful alums, pianist Matt McCabe and guitarist Duke Robillard. The tune Winter Wonderland, like the rest of this solid album, takes you back to the swinging jump blues of another era.



James Brown made several Christmas albums and cut several more singles throughout his long and prolific career. Each of these Christmas albums reflects the style of music he was playing at that particular time. So depending on which JB you like best, the hardest working man in show biz has something for you this time of year. 2010's The Complete James Brown Christmas is a 37 track double CD set that pulls material from his three Christmas albums for the King label. Included are songs from Brown’s 1966 album Christmas Songs, 1968's  A Soulful Christmas and 1970's Hey America.  Also included are some singles JB released from this period. James Brown did what few artists do with Christmas material in that he didn’t change his approach to music to accommodate the holidays, it is the holidays that had to accommodate Brown. Huh! The deep soulful grooves Brown and his airtight band lay down might just scare the reindeer off your roof but that’s OK. This record is so fun, it could be played any time of the year. I wouldn’t recommend doing that with any other Christmas album. The track I chose is Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year.

An Austin Rhythm & Blues Christmas was released on vinyl in 1983. The original album came out on the Austin records label but was re-issued on Epic/Legacy Records in 1986. Paul Ray produced the album and it features the crème de la crème of the burgeoning Austin, Texas blues scene. Vocalists Lou Anne Barton and Angela Strehli, along with Ray, make fine contributions. Saxophonist Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff, guitarist Denny Freeman and drummer George Rains make up the core band along with bassist Sarah Brown. It is her original tune, My Christmas Tree is Hung with Tears that she sings with such soul, her performance stands side by side with the more famous Austin based divas, Barton and Strehli. The two T- Bird tracks are also favorites featuring Kim Wilson’s fine vocals and great harp playing along with Jimmie Vaughan’s always scintillating guitar playing.

Blue Yule is probably the best blues compilation of Christmas tunes of all time. It is a truly hip album thanks to the good folks at Rhino Records. This 1998 release is full of rare tracks from Lightnin' Hopkins, Detroit Junior, Charles Brown, Jimmy McCracklin, Louis Jordan, Hop Wilson, Canned Heat, Roy Milton and others. Many of these tracks can’t be found on other holiday compilations or appeared on records that are out of print. My favorite from this record is John Lee Hooker’s Blues For Christmas.

We queued up the title track to the 2000 compilation album from Stony Plain Records entitled Christmas Blues. This song is seven minutes and thirty two seconds of pure blues bliss. The Gatemouth Moore tune features the late vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon along with guitarist Duke Robillard and his fine band. Spoon must have thought he was in the company of an old musical colleague when Duke played some great T-Bone Walker licks as he is want to do from time to time. The entire album features very unfamiliar Christmas tunes from various artists who were, and in some cases still are, part of the Stony Plain family. Some blues heavy weights who have left us in recent years such as Rosco Gordon and Jay McShann, along with Jimmy Witherspoon, make wonderful contributions to this great CD. You can also hear a Sonny Rhodes original and Billy Boy Arnold doing an old Jimmy McCkracklin tune on this collection. There is even a track with Asleep at the Wheel accompanied by the Roomful of Blues Horns. Duke’s guitar is all over this record and the opening instrumental by Robillard has Duke flexing his rather prodigious jazz chops. This is a very different kind of Christmas album. It is also one of the best. It isn’t your typical record label compilation where the company trots out its roster and has them doing standards with, for the most part, stock arrangements. This record is different, original and fresh, which is why it is one of my favorites.