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Label: Columbia
Sound/Style: Low-key holiday music with minor stylistic variations
By Steve Morley
Christmas music is a mixed bag that can bring a glow to the cheeks, stimulate the tear ducts or turn an otherwise normal person into a scowling Scrooge. When it’s meaningful, personal, or superbly performed (if not all three), it can provide one of the Yuletide season’s most sublime moments. When it’s reheated holiday hash piped out of speakers lurking somewhere above the gas pumps, it’s a nagging reminder of the crass commercialism that Charlie Brown began lamenting in the early 1960s. On James Taylor at Christmas, the baby boomer balladeer splits the difference, lending his comforting, hot chocolate voice to gems as well as a few chestnuts that have already been roasted enough.
On Mel Torme’s oft-covered “The Christmas Song,” Taylor audaciously replaces the turkey with decidedly inedible holly. He may have created the world’s first vegetarian holiday ode, yet there’s precious little originality in his white-bread renderings of perennials like “Winter Wonderland” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” The project was overseen by the talented pianist and composer Dave Grusin, whose lightweight jazz arrangements, however tasteful, aren’t really J.T.’s cup. But underneath half a dozen throwaway stocking stuffers are several surprises far better suited to Taylor’s smooth blues- and folk-influenced style.
His “Fire and Rain”-era prime is briefly echoed in the country-gospel piano that bolsters “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and a version of “River,” written by the singer’s early ‘70s folkie stablemate Joni Mitchell.
Underscored by Taylor’s familiar finger-picked guitar, the pensive, non-traditional song visits a lovelorn soul who can’t seem to find the true spirit of the season. (“They’re cutting down trees/ Putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace/ I wish I had a river I could skate away on…”)
On the lighter side, he hitches up his sleigh to a particularly funky-footed mare on a slippery reworking of “Jingle Bells,” the only track here that finds Taylor unleashing his natural bent for blue-eyed soul.
Like any wise gift-giver, Taylor saves the best and least expected treasures for last. The spiritual core of Christmastime is beautifully expressed on new and rarely heard compositions. “In the Bleak Midwinter” carries a theologically meaty lyric that allows both for worship of the risen Christ and tender devotion to the infant Jesus, while “Some Children See Him” takes the Savior out of the Caucasian box that western culture has made so prevalent.
“Who Comes This Night,” a new number co-written by Dave Grusin, captures the sacred and celebratory tone of a favorite hymn, with Taylor’s heartfelt interpretation penetrating to the intimate heart of the Nativity story. (“For those who would the stranger greet must lay their hearts before Him/ And raise their song in voices sweet to worship and adore Him/ Brother Joseph, bring the light/ Past the night it’s fading/ And who will come this wintry night/ To where the stranger’s waiting?”)
The stylistically and thematically disjointed collection nonetheless contains plenty of heart and soul, with Taylor’s always-genial voice providing pleasant company. If it isn’t exactly an evergreen, James Taylor at Christmas honestly embraces the season’s wishy-washiness as well as its wonder.
Audio Clips
"Winter Wonderland"
"Go Tell It On The Mountain"
"Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"
"Jingle Bells"
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