Forty years of Tony Bennett’s Christmas recordings
Seventeen of these eighteen tracks have been selected by the vocalist from his catalog of albums and compilation appearances on Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album (1968), The Playground (1998), Our Favorite Things (2001), Christmas with Tony Bennett (2002) and A Swingin’ Christmas (2008). The album’s one previously unreleased title is a Marion Evans arrangement of the traditional “What Child is This.†Bennett appears in orchestral, big band and small combo settings, and though the original albums can still be found, this provides a nice sampling across forty years of his stylish takes on holiday standards. Bennett sings with a jazzy cool unparalleled by his peers or followers, and together with some hot charts (particularly those for the Basie band), he gives new life to these holiday chestnuts. The Bennett fanatic in your family may be expecting the monumental 73-CD Complete Collection under the tree, but the rest of the family will be satisfied by this warm collection of classics. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com] 