Gregory Porter‘Christmas Wish’Blue Note / DeccaSamara Joy‘Joyful Holiday’VerveIt might seem blasphemous to describe Christmas music as a mixed blessing, but it’s certainly a complicated one. December is the only month when you can count on hearing the greatest singers of all time — Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett — over the speakers at the local Walgreens and Target, and I never get tired of their voices or the great songs. The trouble is that holiday songs are such a surefire commercial bet that every Tom, Dick, and Harriet feels obliged to do a Christmas album. Whoever said that 90 percent of everything is junk must have been talking about these holiday offerings.This year, though, I am pleased to report I have come across two new releases that I’ll be enjoying for many seasons to come. Both Gregory Porter and Samara Joy are widely popular — about the best-known artists anywhere near the “jazz” category — not least because they incorporate elements of soul music into their singing alongside the jazz fundamentals, and their sounds are deeply soulful. Their holiday offerings start from there, but also incorporate elements of traditional pop, rhythm & blues, gospel music, and anything else that fits the occasion. Possibly by coincidence, both albums feature somewhat offbeat holiday songs from Stevie Wonder’s classic album “Someday at Christmas”; they are by Ron Miller, best known for the hit “For Once in My Life.” Ms. Joy sings “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me,” which she renders especially intimately, accompanied only by a sensitive pianist, Sullivan Fortner. Mr. Porter gives us the title song from that 1967 album, and this too is a standout. He not only croons soulfully but skillfully modulates almost continually. If there still were hit 45s being played on jukeboxes, this would be one; the vinyl resurgence hasn’t gotten that far yet, but this is the track I expect to hear on the soundtracks of future TV movies. Mr. Porter’s “Christmas Wish” is an elaborate album, with a full string orchestra on most tracks and a roster of guest star instrumentals, like harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret, whose sound is so distinctive on “The Christmas Waltz” that one hardly needs need to look up the players in the credits. (Most people will listen via streaming in any case, so, consider this your liner notes.) Both Mr. Porter and Ms. Joy happily exist in several genres at the same time, and he moves easily between a traditional hymn like “Silent Night” and a more modern secular prayer like “Someday at Christmas.” Mr. Porter has also contributed three worthwhile original songs, of which the album’s title song, “Christmas Wish,” is the most memorable. It’s at once highly reverential and incredibly personal, with Mr. Porter emoting over three backup singers and the powerful soloing of tenor saxophonist Tivon Pennicott.My personal choice is “Cradle in Bethlehem,” the one that he learned from Nat King Cole, whom he has described as his spiritual father; clearly, this is the humanitarian sentiment of “Nature Boy” transmuted into a yuletide message. Then there’s the wonderful “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve,” which has replaced “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (both are by Frank Loesser, coincidentally) as the standard holiday boy-girl duet; I for one am glad, because “Baby” was so overdone for so many years. Here it’s Mr. Porter and Ms. Joy doing the duetting, on Mr. Porter’s album, and the results are so splendid that I wish Mr. Porter had returned the favor and joined her for a duet on her album.Ms. Joy’s six-track EP is a much smaller-scale affair. “A Joyful Holiday” also speaks to Ms. Joy’s skills as a tune detective as well as a singer, opening with “Warm in December” by Bob Russell, from Julie London’s “Calendar Girl.” There are more familiar songs too, including two versions of “The Christmas Song,” a solo with Mr. Fortner and jazz trio, and a live duet with her father, Antonio McLendon. There’s also “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” rendered more cheerfully than usual — generally, it’s the saddest Christmas song ever — with guitarist Pasquale Grasso, and a highly reverent “Oh Holy Night” with Mr. Fortner on organ and her “family” singing backup. It’s a short, beautiful set that may find itself part of a longer Joy-full holiday album later on. Both “Christmas Wish” and “Joyful Holiday” immediately join my very short list of worthwhile new holiday albums. They renew my faith not only in Christmas as a musical genre, but in the holiday as a whole.
