12 Classic Christmas Albums: Kultured Child Picks for 2020
Soooo… apparently, it’s Christmas time. As with everything in 2020, for those who celebrate, Christmas has an entirely different significance. While “The Season To Be Jolly” feels like anything but, there is still music. So, with that in mind, here are this year’s Christmas picks from yours truly. May the music heal, restore, connect and ground you in all ways that feel most meaningful.
Albums
Jackson 5 Christmas Album (1970)
The Jackson 5
One of the earliest Christmas albums I remember hearing, Jackson 5 Christmas Album remains a favorite. Christmas Album capped a jam-packed year for the breakout Motown stars. They’d already had a trio of #1 singles, becoming Motown’s biggest-selling group at the time. I can just about picture the marketing meeting about the no-brainer Christmas album that had to happen (although clearly not much time was spent mulling over a title). The awe of this album lies in the way it manages to not be a gimmicky, teenybopper outfit. Jermaine handles the crooning, while Micheal wails like the spirit of a baptist preacher jumped in his twelve year old body. The one exception is Michael’s lead on “Give Love On Christmas Day,” where he renders the two-step, arm-sway treatment with seasoned sentimentality. And their rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” is — by far — my favorite of all time. “Up On the House Top” features a culturally foretelling passage when the songs breaks down and Michael spits a 4-bar verse at the song’s mid point. Classic.
Christmas Interpretations (1993)
Boyz II Men
The 90s! I was a freshman in high school, and now regularly purchasing my own music. I would walk from my high school to Tower Records (sigh…) and grab a CD or two to listen to on the long subway ride home. This is one of those albums. I was a huge Boyz II Men fan when this album came out, but I was possibly an even bigger Brian McKnight fan by this time. So when two of my favorite groups came together, it was indeed Christmas! I’m not a huge fan of modern “original” Christmas songs. Very few of them are any good, in my estimation. Bearing this in mind, with “Silent Night” as the only traditional Christmas song on the album, Christmas Interpretations is an exceptional album. Lyrically, the group sticks to Christmas themes, but the songs have very little typical Christmas signaling in their production, and they stick to their formula of quartet harmony and ballads. “Let It Snow,” the album’s single, features McKnight as producer and vocalist. It’s a first-rate 90s R&B ballad, laced with McKnight’s signature keyboards and a vocal quartet’s dream of a vamp out. The single is the first full song on the album, and it’s easy to surmise that it might be downhill from there, but notably, it absolutely is not. It’s a solid album with, I’d argue, no skippables. This is an album you can play down and thoroughly enjoy.
Song Picks: “Let It Snow,” “Share Love,” “A Joyous Song”
The Temptations Christmas Card (1970)
The Temptations
“Rudolph the Reed-Nosed Reindeer” is worth the price of the whole album.
“Hey, Rudolph!”
A Soulful Christmas (1968)
James Brown
1968. A paradigm shift. A collective amalgamation of grief, despair, hope and determination. The year of “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud).” The Godfather of Soul released the anthem as a single before including it (Parts 1 & 2) on A Soulful Christmas and then ultimately releasing it as the title track of his next album. His “Santa Claus, Go Straight To the Ghetto” signals the psyche of a towering artist with monumental social influence at a critical time within the modern civil rights era. I love this album from top to bottom. It’s quintessential JB: at times more “jazz” leaning, at times showcasing a rarer balladeer side of Brown, via the beautiful “Let’s Unite the Whole World At Christmas.” The title track is a bad-ass “Funky-Drummer-esque” jam. There’s nothing about this album that fits the Christmas album prototype. This is James Brown Does Christmas. And it’s awesome.
Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (1960)
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella sings a set of classic Christmas repertoire as only she can. That’s it. That’s the review. #THEGOAT
Sound of Christmas (1961)
Ramsey Lewis
Full of slow drag swag, this album from the Ramsey Lewis trio is a vibe. Lewis’ trio possesses a moody, crepuscular feel, not uncharacteristic of the early 60s. The bluesier numbers are palpably Ray Charles-influenced. “At Last” (Etta James) arranger, the great Riley Hampton, adds lovely string arrangements that merge perfectly with Lewis’ approach, whether soul, pop, or blues via songs like “Sleigh Ride,” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” Great set for an after hours Christmas eve toast with someone special.
Christmas ’64 (1964)
Jimmy Smith
You’ve never heard “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” done like this before!
Jimmy Smith comes out blazing with Art Davis’ propelling bass right in the pocket. Smith is heard here in various band configurations with fellow all-stars like Kenny Burrell, Ray Barretto, Billy Hart, Grady Tate and Wes Montgomery, who is featured on a fantastic version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” More slow drag swag is on deck with a foxy, big band treatment of “The Christmas Song.” I don’t always want to hear Christmas songs played on the organ, but I can always listen to Jimmy Smith play anything — including Christmas songs. The amount of soul he delivers to a song like “Jingle Bells” defies understanding.
A Child Is Born (2011)
Geri Allen
In 2011, I had the distinct honor of interviewing the late, great Geri Allen for her first and only Christmas recording. The granddaughter of a baptist minister and an invaluable part of Newark’s Bethany Baptist Church community, the award-winning pianistic titan explores traditional and ancient themes with songs like “Imagining Gena at Sunrise” and “Imaging Gena at Sunset” supported by stunning cover art by artist Pamela Kabuya Bowens-Saffo, which depicts the Black Madonna and Child. The traditional “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” includes stirring vocal samples from the women of the Quilt Collective of Geeʼs Bend, Alabama. (Google the quilting tradition of Gee’s Bend). “Journey to Bethlehem” is inspired by a life-changing trip to Allen made to Jerusalem a few years prior to this recording. There to perform at the first Jerusalem Jazz Festival, Allen also spent time in Bethlehem, to pray and meditate at the Western Wall. A Child Is Born feels like a window into those sacred mediations. It’s a mystic, ancestral and deeply affecting offering.
Song Pick(s): God Is With Us (Matthew 1:23), Amazing Grace,
The Christmas Song (1960)
Nat King Cole
Just two beautiful guitar strums signal that the greatest Christmas song ever performed is under way. It’s as if the commencement of all things Christmastime cannot begin until The King has anointed the festivities with his mesmerizing voice. With each phrase, Cole paints the ultimate Christmas fantasy, layer by layer. The gorgeous arrangements, by Ralph Carmichael, now 93, mark the beginning of a musical relationship with Cole that would last until Cole’s passing, in 1965. Easily the greatest Christmas album of all time. In a year of so much uncertainty, this kind of musical familiarity and intimacy can be like a salve for the collective consciousness.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
Vince Guaraldi Trio
What can I say? This is simply a must every Christmas. Aside from the warm and fuzzy nostalgia it evokes every time, this album is a hard swinging, grooving jazz set from Guaraldi with Jerry Granello on drums and Fred Marshall on bass. Their musical symbiosis is absolutely note worthy, as it wholly contributes to how they came to create the perfect Christmas album. From the stellar repertoire and their arrangements, to the outstanding solos from Guaraldi and Marshall, to Granello’s consistent tastiness, this album couldn’t be any better. Guaraldi is a sensitive player with tremendous harmonic depth. The mix of the recording is interesting… it’s not the sound of a tight warm room that one may associate with being appropriate for trio, but its airiness almost adds to the mystique of the album.
Song Highlight(s): Christmastime Is Here, O Tannenbaum
Happy Holidays To You (1979)
The Whispers
The Whispers are, hands down, one of my favorite male vocal groups. Two standout tracks on this 1979 gem are the title track, “Happy Holidays To You,” and their beautiful makeover of the Donny Hathaway classic, “This Christmas,” which turned 50 this year. Written by founding member and lead singer of the 70s funk band, Lakeside, Mark Adam Wood, Jr., and arranged by the extraordinary Gene Page, “Happy Holidays To You” is a pensive and gorgeous ballad, lush with strings, piano and all of the music trimmings that give a great Christmas song its holiday aesthetic. “This Christmas” gets a ballad treatment as well. The slowed tempo allows for a different appreciation of Hathaway’s harmonic brilliance and the overall arrangement is beautiful. Soon after, The Whispers would rework the song, lyrically, as a tribute to the great Hathaway, who passed away that same year.
The Preacher’s Wife: Original Soundtrack Album (1996)
Whitney Houston
While not an actual Christmas album, this classic from the late Whitney Houston harmonizes beautifully with any existing Christmas playlist with songs like “Joy To the World,” ” Who Would Imagine a King,” and her tremendous version of “I Love the Lord,” featuring the Georgia Mass Choir, highlighting this superb set. This album finds Whitney in her element, after many years of dissuasion from her label to record gospel music. She is in great voice, and brings the house down, repeatedly.
Songs
Because I can’t mention Christmas without these songs.
“A Child Is Born”
Live in Marciac 1993
Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan
“Greensleeves”
Africa/Brass
The John Coltrane Quartet
“This Christmas” (1970)
Donny Hathaway
Donny Hathaway
“Be There” (1971)
Donny Hathaway
Donny Hathaway
“Wonderful Christmastime” (1979)
Paul McCartney and Wings
(Yes… I actually dig this song.)