Chait is a good old swingin’ jazz singer in the tradition of Mel Torme or Tony Bennett, with a touch of the Beat poet. Izzy Chait apparently likes to keep things moving. Regardless of your native language, this one is recommended for lovers of pure vocal music.
And ethnocentric Americans wondering if the singers handle English lyrics without awkward accents needn’t concern themselves with trifling matters, because the four sing equally well in English and German. Nonetheless, the music has a sublime quality in spots, particularly with ballads and hymns such as “The First Noel/A Child Is Born” and “Stille Nacht,” the latter done a cappella. More like jazzy classical crossover music. The music is by no means progressive jazz. The arrangements are very original and help to make the album imminently listenable. The chipper foursome from Germany is backed by an able jazz group of Hendrik Soll on piano and keyboards, Bruno Muller on guitar, Christian von Kaphengst on bass and Martijn Vink, with the arranging done by some stalwarts in that field, including Darmon Meader and Peter Eldridge of the outstanding vocal group, New York Voices.
Like an artful Ray Conniff singers album. This young vocal quartet is certainly influenced by Manhattan Transfer, but their almost squeaky clean sound owes as much to choral music traditions of European classical music, and maybe a few glee clubs, Euro style. If you’re looking for holiday music sung in a sultry and romantic jazz style, add this one to your collection. I know, I know, who is? Still, Barlow is a fine singer and likely has a great future as an interpreter of the Great American Songbook and hopefully some more modern material as well.
Barlow clearly did not read my previous reviews of Christmas albums or she wouldn’t have attempted YET ANOTHER remake of Ray Charles-Betty Carter classic, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Her duet partner is Marc Jordan and, well, Ray Charles he isn’t. She has great pitch control and simply sings beautifully. The arrangements here are straight from the jazz singer playbook. This glamorous chanteuse from Canada has a soft willowy voice with a slight edge, almost like Diana Krall in a higher register. And since we can’t go in reverse order of age like at the Mergner house, we’ll stick to alphabetical order here. The holiday season is about giving and today I give you a rundown of holiday CDs released this year, adding another two dozen to the aforementioned total. So I got that going for me, which is nice. What that really means is that I can start playing holiday music on November 22 and go 24/7 until Christmas morning without repeating one cut.
However, I can boast here that in narcissistic preparation for this column, I counted my collection of Xmas CDs and it came to just under 800 albums. Greta Matassa & Chipper Anderson: And to All a Good Nightįor those readers not familiar with my curious obsession with Christmas music, let me just say that you are in the sure and steady hands of a holiday music connoisseur-a man who every year sends out an eclectic CD sampler in lieu of a card or boasting newsletter.
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