VA - Putumayo Presents A Jazz & Blues Christmas (2008)

Putumayo delivers the perfect package of soulful jazz and blues to liven up the holiday season. A Jazz & Blues Christmas offers a memorable array of classic holiday songs by jazz and blues legends and lesser-known artists. B.B. King opens the album with "Christmas Celebration," a rollicking, up-tempo tune cheerfully punctuated with bursts of brass from an energetic horn section. Ray Charles tells the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to a soulful beat. Ramsey Lewis plays "Here Comes Santa Claus," simulating the ring of sleigh bells on the upper registers of his keyboard. And, young Canadian chanteuse Emilie-Claire Barlow offers a new take on the old holiday favorite "Santa Baby."

With other exceptional tracks by rhythm and blues veteran Riff Ruffin, iconic blues crooner Charles Brown, jazz vocalist Topsy Chapman and the traditional New Orleans jazz band, The Dukes of Dixieland, A Jazz & Blues Christmas is sure to join Putumayo's other collections New Orleans Christmas and Christmas Around the World as Yuletide classics.