# New holiday fare from Keb’ Mo’, Ana Gasteyer, Dave Stryker and Barney McAll: Videos, Photos, Sounds

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2019/12/09/new-holiday-fare-from-keb-mo-ana-gasteyer-dave-stryker-and-barney-mcall-videos-photos-sounds/
- Published: 2019-12-09T17:11:36+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Have you broken the seal on Christmas music yet? Because we sure have.**

We’ve already talked here about Big Band Holidays II, the latest season’s greeting
from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Here are selections from five more spirited
new Christmas releases — and one welcome reissue. Consider it fodder for your holiday
playlists, if not your wish list. And keep an ear out for these and other Yuletide
favorites on the air at WBGO.

**Keb’ Mo’, “Christmas is Annoying”**

Keb’ Mo’s first holiday album, Moonlight, Mistletoe & You, could hardly be faulted
for a dearth of sincerity. Along with the title track, an imploring ballad with 
a sax solo by Gerald Albright, it includes several new songs of joy and peace — 
and hope, on a ballad called “When the Children Sing,” featuring a choir that does
just that. (“La-la la, la, la, la, la, la-la,” goes one of their answering refrains.
If only they could have started with a “Fa.”)

But it isn’t all gingerbread and candy canes. The album has a prowling take on “
Merry, Merry Christmas,” by Koko Taylor, and a rip-roaring “Santa Claus, Santa Claus,”
made famous by Louis Jordon. In a more playful and Grinchy mode, Keb’ Mo’ offers
an original with a winking premise: “Christmas is Annoying.”

A light, jaunty tune that finds Keb’ Mo’ backed only by acoustic bassist Scott Mulvahill
and drummer Neil Tufano, “Christmas is Annoying” invokes a handful of holiday hassles:
incessant advertising, maxed credit cards, crass commercialism.

The magic of Christmas, per the logic of the song, loses its luster as one enters
adulthood. The video turns this tongue-in-cheek complaint inside out, with Keb’ 
Mo’ behaving like, well, a kid on Christmas morning — while a couple of actual children
look on with jaded disapproval. Go on, spike that punch, kids!

_Keb’ Mo’ performs on Tuesday in Albany, N.Y.; on Thursday in Salisbury, Mass.; 
on Friday in Portland, Me.; and on Saturday in Collingswood, N.J. _

**Ana Gasteyer, “Sugar and Booze”**

Speaking of spiking the punch, Ana Gasteyer — _Saturday Night Live _alum, Broadway
vet, and according to internet rumor, the Christmas tree on _The Masked Singer _—
has a new album called _Sugar & Booze. _As you’d expect, it’s a zippy, irreverent
ride, with Gasteyer often dialing up the camp. But she is the real deal as a singer,
and the loungy big band charts are smarter than they strictly need to be.

Consider the title track, which could soundtrack some (hopefully harmless) indiscretions
at your next office holiday party. “Once a year we all deserve some fun,” Gasteyer
sings in the bridge. “Life is short, so why live like a nun?”

**Dave Stryker and Eight Track, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”**

Earlier this year, guitarist Dave Stryker released _Eight Track III_, the latest
album by a soul-jazz combo whose ranks include vibraphonist Stefon Harris, organist
Jared Gold and drummer McClenty Hunter. All of those players are back on deck for
_Eight Track Christmas_, which Stryker made after recognizing a niche to be filled.

[[

Some of the tunes, like Donny Hathaway’s “This Christmas” and John Lennon’s “Happy
Xmas (War is Over),” seem almost predestined for this album’s track list. A bit 
more surprising is Stryker’s reharmonized funk arrangement of “God Rest Ye Merry
Gentlemen,” which captures this band at its most relaxed and grooving.

**Dave Koz, “Last Christmas”**

If ever there was a musician to make a cottage industry out of Christmas, it’s smooth-
jazz saxophonist Dave Koz, who recently embarked on his 22nd annual Dave Koz and
Friends Christmas tour, and released _Gifts of the Season_, his seventh Christmas
album_._

Let me say for the record that I have no problem with any of this; the solicitous
gleam in Koz’s music is a natural fit for this time of year, and he knows how to
tie a familiar melody in a bow. For a case in point, look no further than his version
of “Last Christmas,” by Wham! — a near-perfect pairing of musician and material,
from the opening wah-wah slide to the closing fade.

_The Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Tour stops in North Bethesda, Md. on Monday;
in Columbus, Oh. on Wednesday; in Cleveland, Oh. on Thursday; and in Chicago on 
Friday. _

**Barney McAll, “Deep River (ft. Rita Satch)”**

Of course, Christmas also invites reflection of a spiritual sort. That can be true
even for those who aren’t observing it as a religious holiday. I can’t say where
Barney McAll stands on the issue of faith, but he’s certainly on the side of introspection.
Take his new album, An Extra Celestial Christmas, which he’ll release on Friday.
As the title somewhat cheekily implies, it’s an album on which McAll plays celeste(
along with organ, keyboards and percussion), in a kind of far-out spiritual mode.

[[

On “Deep River,” an African American spiritual with a storied pedigree, McAll’s 
twinkling chords can call to mind the lullaby of a windup baby mobile. But the song
has a deeper resonance that its guest vocalist, Rita Satch, carefully delivers —
with understatement, with patience, and eventually with an overdubbed choir. (An
actual choir, the acclaimed University of Houston Chorale Choir, graces another 
track on the album, which McAll composed for a six-channel sound installation in
partnership with artist Janet Biggs. This is that kind of album.)

**Ramsey Lewis Trio, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”**

Finally, as we all know, sometimes the best gift is a vintage classic. Ramsey Lewis
made _More Sounds Of Christmas_ in 1964, as a follow-up to his successful _Sound
Of Christmas_, from a few years prior. Somehow it hadn’t been reissued as a standalone
album until this year, when Verve put out standard editions on CD and LP. On “Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer” the action starts with trio alone — Lewis on piano, Eldee
Young on bass and Red Holt on drums — before a bluesy build-up involving orchestral
strings, with a trombone solo by John Avant.

![Keb' Mo' has a new video for his holiday single, "Christmas is Annoying."](https://
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png?w=640&ssl=1)

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