Theater News

12 CDs of Christmas

Reviews of Carols for a Cure 2011, Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album Volume 2, and 10 more holiday recordings.

Carols for a Cure 2011, Vol. 13 (Rock-It Science Records)
The thirteenth edition in this ongoing fundraising initiative for BC/EFA proves to be a delight through-and-through, starting with Daniel Radcliffe and the How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying company’s take on Tom Lehrer’s “A Christmas Carol,” and finishing with a splendid gospel-infused take on “Auld Lang Syne” from company members of Baby It’s You. In between, there’s everything from an uptempo take on “Christmas Is My Favorite Time of Year” (from Catch Me If You Can), a swell disco carol, “Light It Up” (from Martha Wash and the Priscilla Queen of the Desert company, and a superlatively funny rap tune from Anything Goes‘ Robert Creighton.

Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album Volume 2 (Columbia Records)
The cast of FOX’s hit series Glee offers up a dozen pop-infused seasonal tunes on this exuberant disc, and each of them get a moment to shine on the recording. Broadway favorite Lea Michele delivers a deeply emotional take on Joni Mitchell’s “River,” Darren Criss and Chris Colfer are absolutely endearing in a joyously swinging interpretation of “Let It Snow,” and Tony Award nominee Matthew Morrison and Jayma Mays deliver the country-rock tune “Christmas Eve With You” with flair. Some of the show’s newcomers can also be heard on the disc, most notably Glee Project winner Damian McGinty, whose rendition of “Blue Christmas” is simply swoon-worthy.

Seasons Greetings: A Jersey Boys Christmas (Rhino Records)
Stars of Jersey Boys from across the globe offer up 19 holiday favorites on this enjoyable retro-sounding disc. Tony Award winner John Lloyd Young is on hand to channel his Frankie Valli-persona for a medley of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” and also offers up a jazzy “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” sans the Valli falsetto. Other highlights include a pair of tunes, including “Little Drummer Boy,” delivered with silky smoothness by Joseph Leo Bwarie, and “Do You Hear What I Hear?” delivered with otherworldly delicacy by Rick Faugno.

Elf – The Musical (Original Cast Recording) (Ghostlight Records)
Although the spirit of the season gets an overzealous hard-sell in this 2010 Broadway tuner, listeners shouldn’t automatically dismiss this cast album, which contains some genuinely infectious melodies from Matthew Sklar and some shrewdly wry lyrics from Chad Beguelin. There may be one too many big production numbers here, but even in the over-the-edge “Sparklejollytwinklejingley,” star Sebastian Arcelus charms. Other standout contributions come from Amy Spanger, who delivers the mock-love ballad “Never Fall in Love (With an Elf)” with gusto, and from Beth Leavel and Matthew Gumley, as a mother and son who are hoping to find a little of the Christmas spirit for themselves. The CD is accompanied by a sumptuous booklet that contains a grand essay by Sheldon Harnick.

Winter Wonderettes (LML Music)
A holiday edition of Roger Bean’s Wonderettes series puts a girl-group/early rock ‘n’ roll spin on a host of Yuletime classics to delightful effect. There are also some often-neglected tunes, like Claude and Ruth Thornhill’s atmospheric 1941 number “Snowfall,” Roy C. Bennett and Sid Tepper’s dizzily silly “Suzy Snowflake” from 1951, and “Donde Esta Santa Claus,” Alvin Greiner, Rod Gordon Parker and George Scheck’s south-of-the-border flavored number from the late 1950s. Misty Cotton, Julie Dixon Jackson, Bets Malone, and Darcie Roberts deliver all of the songs with aplomb, leaving listeners beaming with holiday cheer.

Shauna Burns – A Winter Gathering (Red Rock Music LLC)
If Annie Lennox, Sinead O’Connor, and Bjork were to collaborate on a holiday-time score for a Cirque du Soleil show, it might end up sounding something like this consistently intriguing, occasionally bewitching, and sometimes bewildering disc. Listeners will certainly gravitate toward Burns’ incandescent take on “Carol of the Bells” (which is also heard as a gossamer instrumental at the end of the recording), and her gorgeously haunting “Silent Night.” Less accessible (at least on first hearing) are her original pieces, such as “Luma” and “The Gathering,” which sound like innovative modern riffs on liturgical and Celtic music, respectively.

Matt Conner – Snow (mattconner.org)
Conner, the composer of such musicals as The Hollow and Nevermore, offers up 14 tracks of elegantly and intelligently arranged holiday songs on piano on this lovely CD. In addition to standout interpretations of such favorites as “The Holly and The Ivy” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” there are such rarities as “March of the Three Kings” and “The French Noel,” as well as two original songs, including “Icicle,” in which listeners seem to hear water as it forms into a frozen stalactite.

David Ian – Vintage Christmas (Prescott Records)
This new disc makes good on the promise of its title: it contains a bevy of Christmas classics delivered up in a style that would make them at home on an episode of TV’s Mad Men or Pan Am. Not only does pianist/guitarist Ian lead a swinging instrumental take on “The Christmas Waltz,” and an elegant piano solo of “Home for the Holidays,” vocalist Acacia lends her tremulous, purr-like tones (that call to mind Lena Horne) with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” and, with Andre Miguel Mars, she movingly offers up Ian’s original “Christmas Time With You.”

Carole King – A Holiday Carole (Hear Music)
Singer/songwriter Carole King lends her distinctive voice and style to a wonderful assortment of songs suitable for the holidays on this disc, which hearkens to an era when funky folk was a guiding force in popular music. Listeners will find that King has included some seasonal standards — “Sleigh Ride,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” — as well as “My Favorite Things” and “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” which just brim with the comforting spirit of the season. And, thanks to King’s jagged vocals, there’s a decided and welcome edge to the selections that mitigates the saccharine that can creep into such discs.

Chris Standring & Kathrini Shorr – Send Me Some Snow (Ultimate Vibe Recordings)
The only thing better than finding a genuinely satisfying new original holiday song is finding a new CD such as this one, that’s filled with them. Not every tune on this album is going to be destined for greatness, but there are a host of contenders including the überly sunny “Someone’s Gonna Get Something (For Christmas),” the amusing honky -tonky paean to the arrival cold weather, “I’ve Got a Thing for Jack,” and the sultry blues-infused “Dear Santa.” Shorr’s vocals lilt over the tunes she’s written with Strandring, and his contributions on guitar lend emotional heft to the more serious songs, such as “Christmas in Tinseltown.”

Holidazzle Act II (dfwactorsgiveback.org)
Featuring performers from Dallas and Fort Worth, this disc helps to raise funds for local children’s charities. As listeners might imagine, there’s a toe-tapping twang to many of the familiar songs on the disc, including a “We Three Kings” that sounds like it might have been used in an old John Wayne flick, and the disc’s opener, “That’s What Christmas Means to Me,” which also has overtones of classic rock. Not all of the tracks are golden (an intricately arranged “Silent Night,” disappoints), but it would be Scrooge-ish to not recommend the recording, simply because of the presence of a deliriously campy take on “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch.”

Il Volo – Special Christmas Edition (Rentor / Geffen Records)
Italian reality TV stars Il Volo — a trio of tenors not yet 20 years old — bring their robust voices to both religious and secular music on this always enjoyable digital EP. There’s no question that their vocals have an impressive weight, whether delivering “Silent Night” (the album has tracks in both English and German) or “Let It Snow.” And though they are sometimes tripped up in pronunciation and phrasing in “Jingle Bell Rock” and “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” their “Panis Angelicus” is simply sublime.