Stuck at home this Christmas? Here are three holiday collections to consider spinning with a fire in the fireplace and eggnog in the mug.

Al Jarreau
Christmas
Rhino Records
2008

Singer Al Jarreau's Christmas is one of those rare delights that over a 40-year career slip through the cracks, emerging when the artist is fully mature. Jarreau's Christmas vision is a smooth one. Technically smooth jazz, better defined as adult contemporary, Christmas is a perfect snapshot of jazz vocals circa 2008. Had it been made by any other artist (read: "lesser artist") than Jarreau, it would not age as well. But in the hands of Jarreau, it will remain his new testament to the holiday season.

With velvet arrangements and softened digital tone, Christmas updates both the religious and secular canons of holiday music, all tastefully. The most effective pieces are a swirling "Carol of the Bells" and a quasi a cappella "I'll Be Home for Christmas" performed with Take 6. "Gloria in Excelsis" sounds as if arranged by Andrew Craig for the Gospel Christmas Project. Based on the Catholic Mass' "Glory to God in the Highest," this Gloria is given a vibrant shine by Jarreau's band and background vocals.

While not homemade eggnog, Christmas is a rich holiday confection with just enough of a bit to get one's attention without overpowering the listening ambiance. Jarreau is in his perfectly elastic voice, little dimmed by his 40-plus year career. It might even be hoped that Jarreau does not release another holiday recording, making this fine one his Christmas Statement.

Visit Al Jarreau on the Web.

Tim Green and Trio Cambia
Change of Seasons
OA2 Records
2008

Pianist Tim Green has been making compelling jazz noise since the turn of the millennium. Moving from Champaign to Chicago in 2000, Green received a call from local tenor saxophonist Von Freeman to round out his current quartet. Green subsequently released Catching Yourself Gracefully (OA2 Records, 2002) and later Jeannie's Song (OA2 Records, 2005). Green has returned with his Latin side project, Trio Cambia, with a most un-Latin holiday collection, Change of Seasons.

Change of Seasons is a holiday collection like several of its popular contemporaries—Melissa Etheridge's A New Thought for Christmas (Island, 2008) and Mary Chapin Carpenter's Come Darkness, Come Light (Zoe Records, 2008)—focusing less on traditional carols and the more on new additions to the Christmas canon, with newer music proposed as such. Green sports a single traditional tune, "So You Hear What I Hear," played in a breezy, post-modern contemporary fashion. And for the traditional fare, that is about it. Of the newest editions to the Christmas canon, Green provides Thad Jones' sublime "A Child is Born" and the most satisfying cover of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" recorded to date.

In the music for consideration category, Green spins a keen "Everything's Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar, a beautifully organic traditional, "Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow," and an incredibly elegant and funky (if those two adjectives are not mutually exclusive) take on Rod Argent's "Time for the Seasons" (who would have thunk it!). Where such fearless music making can and often does end badly, particularly with holiday music, Change of Seasons proves itself a superior release and likely the best of this holiday season.

Visit Tim Green on the Web.

Loreena McKennitt
A Midwinter Night's Dream
Quinlan Road
2008

Wispy Celtic overtones and plush instrumentation and orchestration: what is not to like? Singer and keyboards player Lorenna McKennitt has perfected the production of this type of music like Mozart perfected Haydn. A Midwinter Night's Dream fleshes out the previously released EP A Winter Garden: Five Songs for The Season (Quinlan Road, 1995). The songs are all well sung and the instruments well played but lack that very necessary ingredient to be completely successful: something to say.

It is the dusk of new age and this music, which will doubtlessly please its numerous fans, is cold ash after the fire. But having said this, McKinnett does what she does better than anyone else and her "Coventry Carol" and "Good King Wenceslas" are not without their charm. Christmas is the substance of myth and hope and for these roles, it requires the proper soundtrack. The etheral sound of Loreena McKinnett has served this popular purpose well. But the paradigm now must be updated. We are still in search of such a new soundtrack.

Visit Loreena McKennitt on the Web.

Mariah Hortans and Mathias Sandberg Duo
Christmas Jazz
Sandberg Music
2008

Christmas Jazz has a decidedly Scandinavian flavor to it from the authentic Finnish carols to Mariah Hortans' lightly accented English. Hortans, with jazz guitarist Mathias Sandberg, debuts Christmas Jazz, a collection of Scandinavian and English Christmas carols that is far enough off the beaten path to be interesting. This fact alone makes the disc a worthwhile consideration.

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