New Music Tuesday - Holiday Round Up

Three new holiday CD's to run down this year, and a classic track.

First up, Brian Setzer, with his second holiday CD, Dig That Crazy Christmas! The best tracks are the instrumental My Favorite Things, and Jingle Bell Rock, when Brian again gets to show off his guitar skills. His Grinch is fun, but the vocal can't live up to the hallowed Thurl Ravenscroft's classic. On the whole, the disc is a lot of fun, but nothing superb. On What Are You Doing New Year's Eve, a duet with Julie Reiten, it sounds as if the vocalists were listening to playback at different speeds...they are never in sync. It is very strange. And not in a good way.

Second, we are featuring Anita Baker's Christmas Fantasy. I have to give this release a low score, with the exception of the outstanding first track, Frosty's Rag, which I will eagerly add to future up-tempo holiday mixes. On the whole, the tracks are uninspired and overproduced for my tastes.

Batting clean-up this season is Diana Krall with her much-hyped Christmas Songs. Scout is quite the fan of Ms. Krall, and so we pledged not to listen to this one, until we could hear it together over Thanksgiving. I don't think there was a particular track that we were both impressed by, but if forced to pick a hit track, I'm going to have to go with Sleigh Ride. Again, the music is over produced, and despite the press to the contrary, to me it sounds like the there is little relation to the singer and band. It sounds to me as if the vocal track was just layed down over pre-recorded music. There is too little emotion and connection for a compelling jazz ballad.

I found a Christmas CD at the used record store, and thought it just might be bad enough to play at work, and for $2.50, it wasn't a bad bargain. Little did I know that included on this CD was Marlene Dietrich "singing" The Little Drummer Boy (or more correctly, Der Trommelmann). Oh, my friends, this is classic. And reason enough that Marlene was a film star. Just when you think the military drumming is going to put you over the edge, here comes the Village of the Damned Aryan Youth Choir to fill in the rum-pa-pa-pum's. What a joyous season.

(P.S. - My Penpal reminds me that she owns a 45 rpm of Marlene "singing" the classic, Too Old To Cut The Mustard)