2009 Holiday CD Gift Guide! - a list by Top-10-CD-List

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About this list:

Welcome to my HOLIDAY CD GIFT GUIDE! On the list is Kermit Ruffins, Count Basie, Harry Connick, Jr., Jeremy Davenport, Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Sugarland, Carrie Underwood & Los Lonely Boys. From GREAT New Orleans Xmas music, ti the ultimate Count Basie, to Country & Crooners and a variety of other genres. I'll guide you the right gift for everyone on your list! There's some great deals out there in November, so don't delay, start your gift buying today!

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Viewing 1-10 of 10 Items

Kermit Ruffins - Have a Crazy Cool Christmas

First to recommend

Description

Any fan of New Orleans, Mardi Gras music, the likes of Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, Harry Connick Jr., Wynton Marsalis or just the festive spirit of the Holiday Season will love this record!

It totally makes you get up and dance! Also, for holiday entertaining there is no doubt in my mind, that this CD will ensure a festive party and make all your guests smile, dance, laugh and have a great time with fun memories, when you play this record!

The brass is fantastic as are the vocals. Look at the what others had to say about this album:

"Kermit plays some sweet, sweet vocals."
- Newsweek.com

"A savory celebration of the New Orleans Jazz Entertainment Continuum."
- Cadence Magazine

"A musical good time tour of the Crescent City"
- Larry Applebaum
Jazz Times

You can also get single downloads here:
http://bit.ly/KermitRuffinsMP3s (via Basin Street Records)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Jeremy Davenport - We'll Dance 'Til Dawn

First to recommend

Description

Jeremy Davenport's music is to die for! He's taken traditional jazz and turned into a hip young version of a new kind of Jazz.

"We’ll Dance ‘Til Dawn is a dry martini of an album filled with crisp, urbanely delivered standards and supple afterglow ballads. In that sense, it’s a much more modern take on the New Orleans tradition and frames Davenport in a wider lens than just a New Orleans act." - iTunes review

You can also get downloads here:
http://bit.ly/Jeremy_DavenportMP3 (via Basin Street Records)

Updated Nov 3, 2009

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Count Basie Orchestra - "Swinging, Singing, Playing"

First to recommend

2 people recommended this item

Description

WOW! My Parents are gonna FLIP over this record when they get it for Christmas!

This is a star studded, JAM PACKED CD! Check out all the famous musician's on this album!

Even while the Count Basie Orchestra was in the studio finishing work on its Tony Bennett album, A Swinging Christmas, the ensemble’s new album was already taking shape: a salute to such jazz titans as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Freddie Hubbard and John Coltrane, in addition to such living legends as Bennett, Quincy Jones, Hank Jones, Frank Wess, Jon Hendricks, Curtis Fuller, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and others.

Mack Avenue Records presents Swinging, Singing, Playing: The Count Basie Orchestra Salutes the Jazz Masters featuring top-drawer performances by the big band and its all-star guest list that includes Jones, Wess, Hendricks, Fuller, Geri Allen, Nnenna Freelon, Janis Siegel, Butch Miles, Rufus Reid and, in a nod to the younger generation that embraces Basie music, sparkplug singer/pianist Jamie Cullum. (via Mack Avenue Records)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Christmas Spirit - Los Lonely Boys

First to recommend

Description

"The problem with almost every Christmas album is that you've heard the songs before, and you've probably got a favorite arrangement, and that may cause you to just listen to a new version without hearing it.

Get ready to have your favorite arrangements re-arranged!

Los Lonely Boys, with the assistance of some of their friends and children - and some mysterious singers aka The Elf Choir - deliver a wonderful musical Christmas package for us all! A special thanks to Michael Ramos and his keyboards, and both Rick and Mark Del Castillo for adding their guitar brilliance to this presentation!

Continuing the musical growth from Forgiven, you'll hear additional lyric development as well as some outrageously beautiful harmonizing.

8 old favorites, and 2 brand new songs - let's get started!

Comments in track list order:

I've Longed For Christmas. You will swear you've heard this song before - it feels so very classic - and so very beautiful. All songs are shared between the three brothers, but I think that Jojo wrote this, and certainly he takes lead, and his kids contribute a great full choir ending to the song.

She'll Be My Everything (For Christmas). Pure Henry. Imagine a 1950's slow rock tune - very dance-able - and you've got this song. Sweet with some really neat lyrics.

Run Run Rudolph. If the LLB organization does not turn this into a music video, all the fans should raise a ruckus. This one feels like Henry is channeling Chuck Berry with all the rambunctious fun of the early 1960s. Whoever organized the album did a great job backing this up against She'll Be My Everything.

Cancion de las Campanas (Carol of the Bells). Performed instrumentally, it feels so very right. Starting with an acoustic performance, smoothly moving to electric guitar and even including a drum solo from Ringo, you'll want to play this one again and again for its musical richness.

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Hooray! A bluesy twist on this song for sure!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Oh yeah! A very solid rockin' version of this song. Santa Claus is comin', baby, well he's comin' to town! Also one that I'd love to see live.

Away In A Manger. Missed the smooth power of More Than Love? Give this one a listen, then. Totally suitable for an acapella performance at a show - something I'm really wishing for as we head into the 2008 holiday season and the shows between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Feliz Navidad. The story is that the original tracks were found and that the song is the same one we've had for years. But it feels so new! One of LLB's strengths is always the live performances; Manny Marroquin's elegant mixing skills give us a chance to rediscover an old song all over again.

Jingle Bells. WHO IS THAT VOICE? (smile) Ringo, well done. If you liked Texican Style's ending, you'll love the Elf Choir's background noise in this song as Jojo calls out someone who is not singing! Close your eyes and see him pointing with a great big smile on his face. And we get another kazoo solo! Just great fun!

Silent Night. The perfect ending for the album. If you've wished for a slow, semi-bluesy, terrifically sweet instrumental rendition of this song, stop wishing. Completely appropriate for use in a church service in my opinion. The boys seem completely engaged in making this song shine!

As a long time fan, I'm THRILLED to hear Henry get turned loose to play long passages, and I'm OVERJOYED that we've got some very clearly Spanish rhythms making it back into the music.

And, of course, not only family friendly, but with kids and friends assisting, a joy and a true pleasure to sit back and enjoy.

This is a wonderful album all the way around, and would be a great Christmas present! I'm betting that there are new fans made by hearing this album.

PS: If this cd becomes the success that it can be, then I'm nominating Please Come Home For Christmas for the second LLB Christmas album!" - AustinStratFan ( Review quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Play On: Carrie Underwood

2 people recommended this item

Description

" 2009 release from the four-time Grammy Award winner and former American Idol winner. Carrie has come a long way since her AI days including selling more than 10 million albums, garnering ACM and CMA awards and becoming the first Country artist in history to achieve 10 #1 singles from her first two albums. To top that all off, she was also recently inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame! This 2009 album includes the first single 'Cowboy Casanova'." (Editorial Review from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Gold and Green - Sugarland

First to recommend

Description

"If you're tired of the same old cover versions of traditional Christmas music, you're not alone. Sugarland must have felt the same way, for this nifty little early Christmas present from country's premiere duo contains as many original holiday-themed compositions as it does reworkings of the expected chestnuts. The pair even puts their signature style on some of the cover versions. For example, it might be hard to picture anyone else singing "Nuttin' for Christmas" after hearing Jennifer Nettles' comically mischievous take on the song.

But it's the 5 original compositions that really separate GOLD AND GREEN from the rest of the holiday pack. "City of Silver Dreams" opens the disc with snowy sweet love letter to New York City, a song that surely deserves a place among the all-time great Christmas tunes. "Coming Home" revisits the theme of the band's first single "Baby Girl" (even going so far as to have the mother in the song ask 'How's my baby girl?'), and it's hard not to see art imitating life when one realizes it was just 5 short years ago that Nettles and Co. burst onto the scene with that slice of life-on-the-road. The title track evokes a sort of country-tinged Carpenters, although even Karen Carpenter never got so choice a line as "The butter light of candlesticks/Chases snowflakes off the bricks." Kristian Bush takes the mic for "Maybe Baby (New Year's Day)", a restless plea to see an old lover during the holidays. While probably the weakest of the original songs here, it's still a fine Steve Earle-style mid-tempo rocker.

And then we come to what is not only the album's best song, it could be the song-writing and performance high point of Sugarland's career to date. "Little Wood Guitar" is as perfect a composition as has come around in many years. While stylistically akin to "Coming Home," the song simply takes flight when Nettles reaches the chorus. And again, it's hard not to see some truth in the story of the rather unassuming Christmas present that had the power to change a person's life.

I guess the real revelation about GOLD AND GREEN is that it does not, for one moment, NOT feel like a Sugarland album. This is no studio-mandated collection of cover songs designed to front-load the retail racks in time for Christmas. It is what it is: A Sugarland Christmas album. Highly recommended." - A.Gammill(Quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Sting - If On A Winter's Night

First to recommend

Description

"Contrary to Dylan's slapstick Christmas In the Heart, this is a serious work of reverent and inspired musicianship.

About half of the fifteen songs celebrate what Sting describes as the "magical elements" of Christmas. The rest are more generally seasonal in focus. As Sting explains in the very comprehensive liner notes, "...we are gathered here to celebrate and explore the music of Winter, the season of frosts and long dark nights".

And yes - the mood of winter is conjured up as seven musicians "wrapped in scarves and coats" collaborate and improvise with uncommon excellence.

Traditional instruments, Celtic overtones, and the voice of the former Police lead vocalist now sounding decidedly choral, come together to warm the heart in a most surprising way.

I particularly like Soul Cake, with background vocals by the Webb Sisters (the sublime Webb Sisters according to Leonard Cohen), which weaves the melody of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen into the music of Paul Stookey. Gabriel's Message with haunting horn work by Ibrahim Maalouf, and Sting's own The Hounds of Winter are other standouts.

The low points for me are Cold Song and Now Winter Comes Slowly, the two pieces with music by baroque composer Henry Purcell. Sting reaches, but clearly can't pull off the basso profondo needed to do justice to these works.

Nevertheless this is a very good CD that I'll be going back to time and time again, even though it clearly isn't what Sting fans might expect from the erstwhile rocker. Interestingly, the iTunes database identifies the genre as "pop". It's decidedly not...

Notwithstanding Sting's disclaimer as to his agnosticism, this is a profoundly spiritual work. As he writes, "...the sacred symbolism of the Church's art still exerts a powerful influence over me".

Indeed. As he put it many years ago when writing for the Police, "We are spirits in the material world"... " - Lightman (Quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Standards & Ballads: Wynton Marsalis

First to recommend

Description

"Wynton Marsalis has been described as the most powerful jazz musician in America today. "Powerful" is an appropriate adjective not only for his commitment to jazz education and proliferation (he made Jazz at Lincoln Center an internationally respected name) but also for his calm, controlled, and thoughtful approach to the trumpet. When you hear him drag on the melodic lines of My Ideal (tk 7) à la Miles Davis, or pound on the staccato beats of When It's Sleepytime Down South (tk 1) or float, muted, over the drum beat of Flamingo (tk 14), you recognize the depth of his art and the strength he has in knowing when to push and when to let. The arrangement of April In Paris (tk 12) is a standout of the album - the quartet dramatically changes feels from a hurried straight to a loose swing throughout - highly recommended. Marsalis co-produced this compilation of jazz standards and by choosing unusual standards and unique performances, we see how attentive he is to reinterpreting the shared language of the jazz world." - A. Gillette(Quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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The Definitive Collection - Louis Armstrong

First to recommend

Description

"I think this is an excellent album for someone who wants an easy-to-get-into introduction to jazz. It contains Louis' later hits, like Hello Dolly! which knocked the Beatles off the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 100 list in 1964 and made Louis the oldest man ever to have a number one hit single.

This album also contains some superb earlier work including a taste of Louis duetting with Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by Oscar Peterson, and some terrific numbers like I Want a Little Girl from 1946.

All in all it is an extremely enjoyable listen. If it inspires some people to take an interest in jazz, when they didn't before, then so much the better, and if it doesn't, well it is still enjoyable in its own right.

Considering that Louis was one of the seminal players who practically invented jazz in the 1920s, and a key figure in the history of twentieth century popular culture whom every one ought to know about, this album is a pretty fun place to start.

From here I would perhaps move on to listen to the Best of the Verve Years with the duets with Ella Fitzgerald, and then to some of the earlier stuff.

[Oh, yes, one more thing. You can hear in Hello Dolly! that he pronounced his own name Loo-iss and not Loo-ee!]" - Jonathan M. Mason(Quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Harry Connick, Jr. - Songs I Heard

First to recommend

Description

In the great tradition of Frank Sinatra, Harry Connick stands out as one of this generation's strongest crooners. Although the album was released in 2001, it is still one of my favorites. The kids love this album as much as I do, as Connick rearranges and revisits some famous songs from childhood films, such as "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and "Spoonful of Sugar" (from Mary Poppins) and "Oompa Loompa" (from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and "Over the Rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz.

"... Connick proves his worth as an arranger, especially on the tracks that get the full New Orleans swing treatment. Boasting several excerpts, The Wizard of Oz must have made quite an impression on young master Harry: "Ding Dong" becomes a zippy big-band number and "Over the Rainbow" begins with a thunderous intro before segueing into the familiar melancholy tune. But the best is the obscure "The Jitterbug," a brilliantly catchy number that had been cut from the movie's final version. Still, as good as they are, Connick's arrangements don't quite match Herbert Stothart's original ones. The CD ends with The Sound of Music's "Edelweiss" and "Do Re Mi," the latter in a swell finger-snapping version. Connick's silliest record to date is also his most warmly endearing."
--Elisabeth Vincentelli (Quoted from Amazon.com) (via Amazon)

Updated Oct 30, 2009

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