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Hipsters' Holiday: Vocal Jazz And R&B ClassicsAt the height of the CD era, Rhino Records gave us about two dozen marvelous compilations documenting holiday music in a dizzying variety of genres including country, jazz, blues, doo wop, reggae, punk, new wave, and swing. Together, these albums documented the history of recorded Christmas music in the 20th century, and Hipsters' Holiday: Vocal Jazz And R&B Classics (1989) is one of the best.

Spanning 20 years (1946 to 1966), Hipsters' Holiday provides a vivid snapshot of American jive in the full flower of health. As its subtitle infers, Hipsters' Holiday samples a broad swath of post-war Black music, from hard bop to swing, from jump blues to doo wop. The common thread is that these are vocal numbers - no instrumentals. Even the Miles Davis track is sung! With one glaring exception (more on that below), these songs are fine examples of their genre and era, and most rise to classic status. More to the point, each of them is an unusual, often uproarious, occasionally scabrous celebration of Christmas.

Santa Comes On Big

At the emotional heart of Hipsters' Holiday is Louis Armstrong, the patron saint of jazz. Satchmo was down in New Orleans when jazz was coalescing, and he played on a seminal recording called "Santa Claus Blues" in 1924 - a milestone in the history of both Christmas music and jazz. Jumping forward a few decades, Hipsters' Holiday collects three of six wonderful Christmas sides Armstrong recorded for Decca Records during his creative maturity in the 1950's. All three are original songs, though none were written by Armstrong himself. The first two, "'Zat You Santa Claus?" and "Cool Yule," were released as a single in 1953, with backing by the Commanders - a big, brassy combo. The third, "Christmas Night In Harlem," was released as a single in 1955 with the equally fine flipside, "Christmas In New Orleans." This time, Armstrong was backed by his long-running touring group, the All-Stars, with direction by saxophonist Benny Carter - a legend in his own right.

Louis Wishes You A Cool YuleAll six of Louis Armstrong's Decca sides would subsequently be collected on at least two fine, though rather different, albums. On the first, What A Wonderful Christmas (1997), the Decca recordings are accompanied by a fine batch of jazz recordings by other artists. The second, Louis Wishes You A Cool Yule (2022), is the best-ever version of the Christmas album that Armstrong never actually recorded, including five additional songs from the last half of his career.

Santa Done Got Hip

The rest of Hipsters' Holiday is mostly pure, albeit unconventional, Christmas fun. And, a surprising number of the songs are hepcat odes to a new kind of Santa Claus. In the words of the Marquees' 1959 doo wop classic, "Santa done got hip." Thereafter, he proceeds to do the boogie woogie with Mabel Scott and dance the mambo with Big John Greer. According to beat poet Babs Gonzales, Santa has updated his whole bag for the jazz age. "I'm the be-bop Santa from the cool North Pole," he declares, "and a stud's mighty square if he don't dig me."

Hipsters' Holiday isn't all fun and games, though. In her song "Christmas Spirits" (1948), Julie Lee complains, "I don't feel a thing." She was a blues singer from Kansas City who specialized in risqué songs like "King Size Papa" and "My Man Stands Out," and as Christmas Spirits" proceeds, it becomes clear that Julia wants her stocking stuffed in a rather specific way. Just as randy, but more decorous, is Lionel Hampton's "Merry Christmas Baby" (1950) with a vocal by Sonny Parker. It's a cover of the romantic song made famous by Charles Brown, who first recorded it in 1947 with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers. Hampton's languorous, swinging, brassy treatment is a whole new thing, including a requisite vibraphone solo from the bandleader.

Jingle Bell Jam: Jazz Christmas ClassicsDecember Do-Gooders

Three songs on Hipsters' Holiday address the ever-more-commercialized nature of the holidays. This starts with two great gold digger soliloquies, Eartha Kitt's salacious, celebrated "Santa Baby" (1953) and Pearl Bailey's equally avaricious, if less renowned, "Five Pound Of Money" (1959). These songs are juxtaposed, however, with Miles Davis' "Blue Xmas" (1962), which he recorded for Columbia's groundbreaking Jingle Bell Jazz collection.

Bob Dorough provides the vocal in "Blue Xmas" - one of very few vocal numbers in Miles Davis' enormous catalog. Dorough was a pianist, lyricist, and singer who sometimes bordered on "vocalese" - wordless singing resembling instrumental solos - and he later became famous for composing and performing much of the Schoolhouse Rock! children's television series. In contrast, "Blue Xmas" is a venomous rant on commercialism and hypocrisy. Christmas, Bob laments, is "a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy" and "December do-gooders rush around and rant and rave" while ignoring "lots of hungry, homeless children in your own backyards." Ouch!

Other vocalese numbers on Hipsters' Holiday include the zany "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" (1962) by celebrated trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and "Jingle Bells" by Leo Watson (1949), one of the more obscure offerings on Hipsters' Holiday. Taken from a scratchy 78, it's pretty wonderful, nonetheless - an unhinged scat deconstruction of James Pierpont's greatest hit. Watson was a jazz singer and multi-instrumentalist who worked with Artie Shaw, Gene Krupa, and Benny Goodman, among others. On "Jingle Bells," he was accompanied by trombonist Vic Dickenson's quintet featuring the immortal Jellyroll Lipschitz on piano. Can't make this stuff up, folks....

Blue Yule: Christmas Blues & R&B ClassicsA Lump Of Coal

Like any good Christmas collection, Hipsters' Holiday concludes with a New Year's song, the sophisticated doo wop of the Coolbreezers' "Hello Mr. New Year" (1957). But, chronologically, it concludes with Lena Horne's lightly swinging "Jingle All The Way" from 1966 - or, rather, it should have. Rhino Records had a bad habit of throwing a contemporary cut or two into their otherwise historic compilations. The label seemed compelled to prove that whatever genre they were documenting (jazz in this case) was still relevant on the modern music scene. But, they often ended up making the opposite point by including recent recordings that suffer mightily in comparison to the historical tracks that surround them.

Hipsters' Holiday jumps forward to 1989 for the Tim Fuller Experience's "Silent Night," which is even worse. It's a real "what were they thinking?" moment. Fuller is a now-forgotten flavor-of-the-month, and his performance virtually oozes condescension, mixing smarmy cocktail jazz with purloined Beatle riffs (how droll). Fuller is described in the liner notes as "the Tony Clifton of the 90's" - like that's a compliment! In fact, he more closely resembles Bill Murray's lounge singer on Saturday Night Live - trying so hard to be hip, failing so miserably, winding up pathetic. Perhaps Fuller's inclusion was intended to make everything else on Hipsters' Holiday sound marvelous in comparison, and it certainly succeeds on that count.

But otherwise, Hipsters' Holiday is a brilliant, indispensable collection. - and one of my Top 20 Albums. Like all the Rhino collections, however, it never made the leap to the world of downloads or streaming. Rhino licensed tracks from many disparate labels for use on those specific compact discs - long before there was such a thing as iTunes or Spotify. I wish I could say that there are equivalents in the virtual world but, mostly, there are not. That said, you can find most of the Hipsters' Holiday tracks online, but they may not be properly licensed or, worse, they might be taken from inferior sources. Caveat emptor. [top of page]

Albums Albums

SongsEssential Songs

  • Be-Bop Santa Claus (Babs Gonzales, 1955)
  • Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern) (Miles Davis, 1962)
  • Boogie Woogie Santa Claus (Mabel Scott, 1948) Top 100 Song
  • Christmas Night In Harlem (Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars, 1955)
  • Christmas Spirits (aka Christmas Blues) (Julia Lee & Her Boyfriends, 1948) Top 100 Song
  • Cool Yule (Louis Armstrong & The Commanders 1953)
  • Deck Us All With Boston Charlie (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, 1962)
  • Dig That Crazy Santa Claus (Oscar McLollie & His Honey Jumpers, 1954)
  • Five Pound Box Of Money (Pearl Bailey, 1959)
  • Hello Mr. New Year (Coolbreezers, 1957)
  • Jingle All The Way (Lena Horne, 1966)
  • Jingle Bells (Leo Watson, 1949)
  • Merry Christmas Baby (Lionel Hampton, 1950)
  • Santa Baby (Eartha Kitt, 1953) Top 100 Song
  • Santa Done Got Hip (Marquees, 1959)
  • We Wanna See Santa Do The Mambo (Big John Greer, 1954)
  • 'Zat You Santa Claus? (Louis Armstrong & The Commanders, 1953) Top 100 Song

Further ListeningFurther Listening

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