This holiday season has delivered a sack full of Christmas music.
The full-length album choices include having a cool yule with Louis Armstrong; family time with Andrea Bocelli and Gloria Estefan; soulful moments with Ray Charles, James Brown and Joss Stone; and a rocking and crooning holiday with Chris Isaak.
The holiday singles crop offers actress Ann-Margret’s and Lafayette guitarist master Sonny Landreth’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” available as a 45 rpm vinyl disc; “Christmas This Year,” a dramatic, lavishly orchestrated ballad sung by New Orleans- and New York-based actor and musician Michael Cerveris; and rising young jazz singer Samara Joy’s two seasonal singles, “Warm in December,” featuring pianist and New Orleans native Sullivan Fortner, and “O Holy Night,” performed with the Joy family.
Many of the new holiday releases below are available in multiple formats, including festive red vinyl.
LOUIS ARMSTRONG, “Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule”: Although New Orleans-born jazz star Louis Armstrong released Christmas songs through the years, he didn’t issue an album of holiday music during his lifetime. A half-century after his passing, most of Armstrong’s holiday recordings are collected on an 11-track album including “Christmas in New Orleans,” “Cool Yule,” the nonholiday favorite, “What a Wonderful World,” and his previously unreleased reading of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” aka “The Night Before Christmas,” featuring newly recorded piano accompaniment by Fortner.
Armstrong biographer Ricky Riccardi, a regular speaker at Satchmo Summerfest and director of research collections at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York, wrote the album’s liner notes.
BACKSTREET BOYS, “A Very Backstreet Christmas!”: The first holiday album from the Backstreet Boys in the group’s 30 year-career features the newly composed and recorded “Christmas In New York,” “Together” and “Happy Days.”
ANDREA BOCELLI, “A Family Christmas”: Opera star Bocelli and his family sing holiday classics plus “Over the Rainbow,” “Il Giorno Più Speciale (The Most Special Day)” and “Buon Natale (Happy Christmas).”
JAMES BROWN, “Christmas Time”: Soul star Brown puts a funky spin on the holiday with “Christmas Is for Everyone,” “Reindeer on the Rooftop” and nine more.
RAY CHARLES, “The Spirit of Christmas”: Originally released in 1985, Charles’ holiday gift pairs standards and originals performed with the Raelettes and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.
GLORIA ESTEFAN, “Estefan Family Christmas”: Estefan joins her daughter, Emily, grandson, Sasha, and more family members in 14 English-language songs and three Spanish performances.
CHRIS ISAAK, “Everybody Knows It’s Christmas”: Isaak’s second Christmas album presents eight new Isaak compositions plus fun remakes of “Run Rudolph Run,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock.”
NORAH JONES, “I Dream of Christmas Deluxe”: The Grammy-winning singer-pianist’s popular 2021 Christmas album returns in a deluxe edition, including in-concert recordings and a new studio rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
ALICIA KEYS, “Santa Baby”: Keys reinvents seven classics and contributes four original songs to the holiday repertoire. “I love this music,” she says. “I picked each song based on my all-time favorites, and I wrote the new ones based on real holiday emotions and stories.”
JOSS STONE, “Merry Christmas, Love”: The first holiday project from the Nashville-based, British neo-soul chanteuse Stone includes a Motown-inspired arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me.”
VARIOUS ARTISTS, “Blues Christmas”: Interpreting “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” Baton Rouge’s Kenny Neal is among the blues and rock artists on this collection. The other artists include Joe Louis Walker (“Christmas (Comes But Once a Year”), Lightnin’ Hopkins (“Santa”) and Larry McCray (“Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’ ”).
VARIOUS ARTISTS, “ ’90s Country Christmas”: Country stars of the 1990s sing 16 holiday songs. Tracks include Suzy Bogguss (“Two-Step ’Round the Christmas Tree”), Alan Jackson (“Let It Be Christmas”) and Trisha Yearwood with Vince Gill (“An Angel Gets Its Wings”).
Other 2022 releases include Dolly Parton, “A Holly Dolly Christmas Deluxe”; Pentatonix, “Holidays Around the World”; Lindsey Stirling, “Snow Waltz”; David Foster and Katharine McPhee, “Christmas Songs”; Leslie Odom Jr., “Merry Merry”; Neil Diamond, “A Neil Diamond Christmas Deluxe”; Reba McEntire, “The Ultimate Christmas Collection”; Craig Duncan, “Bluegrass Christmas 2”; Switchfoot, “This Is Our Christmas Album”; and the various artists collections “NOW Wonderful Christmas,” “Have Yourself Another Swingin’ Little Christmas” and “Psychobilly Christmas.”
