Getting Christmas right
Gerard J. Grzyb | 11/11/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I'm not a big-city music critic. I can't put "Chicago Sun-Times" under my name--the best I can do is "Appleton Post Crescent." (Circ. 75,000 -- I've written Christmas CD reviews for it for the past 6 years. But perhaps my comment will carry a little weight since 1) I have what is certainly one of the largest collections of Christmas CDs in the world (now approaching 4000 discs), 2) I've done 40-plus hours of Christmas music radio broadcasting for 11 straight years, with almost no repetition, and thus can claim to have aired a greater number and variety of Christmas CDs than anyone else anywhere.Cool Yule is outstanding in every respect. To cite but one example, Spider's is perhaps the only rendition of "Santa Baby" that could make me forget about Eartha Kitt's. It has exactly the right nice-naughty mix of shamelessness. And her feel for the heart of the other songs on Cool Yule is almost always dead-on. Her voice is everything the songs needed it to be, and the backing musicians are completely in the spirit (special kudos to the remarkable Steve Rodby). This is simply great Christmas jazz."