Customer Reviews

Verve Presents: Very Best of Christmas Jazz

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I bought this cd last year and I love it!! This cd is a collection of classic performances by Verve's elite. The opening track is not Frank DeVol, who did indeed produce the track, it's Ella Fitzgerald. Another error found on this site is the artist listing for "The Christmas Song". It's Mel Torme's performance here. A couple of tracks reappear here, they were featured on Verve's release of "Have Yourself A Jazzy Little Christmas" probably repeated here because of artist merit and performance. One such noteable track is Oscar Peterson's moving rendition of "A Child Is Born."
Verve released a contemporary jazz Christmas album a few years ago and it featured such artists as Betty Carter and Shirley Horn. Shirley's performance of "Winter Wonderland" was lifted from that project and is here. The song is treated like any other Shirley would do, and the result is, well, seductive in an innocent way, the Shirley way. "'Zat You, Santa Claus" by Louis Armstrong has been featured on many budget Christmas releases, but the version here is so well restored it sounds like it was just recorded; the mastering of this disc as a whole is breathtaking. Jimmy Smith's "Jingle Bells" is pure camp, the song arranged as a Hammond b3 piece, "Silent Night" is made even more sacred by Dinah Washington's searing vocal.
This album is an excellent highlight of holiday performances by the living legends and those who have passed, of jazz and should not be overlooked by fans of the jazz genre and Christmas music.

If you like Christmas music, as I do, and you love jazz, as I do, I think this is the CD to buy. First of all, you have a great selection of standard, mostly secular Christmas songs: Rudolph, Here Comes Santa Claus, Jingle Bells, etc. But what really makes this CD for me is the line-up of jazz superstars. Louis Armstrong does his classic, 'Zat You, Santa Claus, Ella on Rudolph, Bill Evans on Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Oscar Peterson doing a wonderful version of Thad Jones' (not strictly a Christmas song) A Child is Born. You even have Mel Torme singing The Christmas Song, which he co-wrote and which was made famous by Nat King Cole. I'll leave it to the reader/potential buyer to look up what else you will get. Suffice to say, this is a wonderful selection of Christmas songs, jazzy as jazz gets, very approachable for jazz aficionados and those "not-so-much", and every one of these songs can brighten up any Christmas party play list. I highly recommend this CD.

This is simply a collection of old Verve Christmas recordings. They have been enhanced from a sound standpoint and present a unique groupoing of Christmas jazz.

I am a big fan of most everyone on the roster (ergo this particular choice), but sometimes the production values were a little lacking (strange or improper mic placement, out of tune pianos etc). Certainly, personal preferences are at play here, but I would think Verve might have given us a little classier "Very Best of..."

I recommend this to anyone that likes smooth jazz and wants mood music for Christmas gatherings. Combine this with other smooth jazz Christmas recordings and let them shuffle on your CD player and you are guaranteed to have a festive occassion.

No Christmas should be without this CD! I had heard many of the songs before, but there were a lot of new ones on this CD that I enjoy. Every song is great!