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- The Jack Jones Christmas Album - The singer's 1964 Christmas album, the first of two he recorded.
- Sing a Song for Christmas - A promotional program issued by the US Air Force in 1966 with Jones and the Air Force band.
- Firestone Presents Your Favorite Christmas Music - This 1967 promotional LP featured him on three songs.
- A Jack Jones Christmas - Jack's second solo holiday LP, made for RCA Victor in 1969, plus a bonus track.
These all come from my collection, except for the Air Force LP, which I sourced from Internet Archive.
The Jack Jones Christmas Album
The selections were about evenly divided between the usual carols and the usual secular songs. Jack seemed to adopt "Mistletoe and Holly" for his own - he used it to open and close the Air Force show below, even though it was co-written by The Voice back in 1957 and featured on my own favorite seasonal record, A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra.
But then, Jack was certainly from the school of Sinatra, and his version is just as genial as you might expect.
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| Lullaby for Christmas Eve picture sleeve |
There is one original on the LP, "Lullaby for Christmas Eve," written by Jones' producer and frequent arranger Pete King, with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. It's an agreeable song that was released as a single, although it did not become a standard and has seldom if ever been recorded again.
Jack also was an early adopter of "My Favorite Things" as a holiday song. His (and Marty Manning's) jazzy rendition was a forerunner of many versions to come while being nothing like John Coltrane's famous 1961 jazz workout on the tune.
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| Arranger and conductor Marty Manning |
The other unusual item for a Christmas album is "The Village of St. Bernadette," written by Eula Parker after a visit to Lourdes and made into a hit by Andy Williams in 1960. Jack's rendition is akin to Andy's - not unexpectedly, considering that both were warm singers with pleasant voices.
The record was deservedly popular. Kapp sent it to market with at least three covers. The one above is the second - it's from my copy of the LP. Below are the other two.
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| First and third covers |
LINK to The Jack Jones Christmas Album
Sing a Song for Christmas
He shares the stage with the Air Force Band (called the "Symphony in Blue") and its dance band contingent, the Airmen of Note. Also heard are the vocal group the Singing Sergeants.
Jack's material is entirely selected from his first Christmas LP. He uses the same arrangements, but these are new recordings specially made for this production. The vocalist is in prime form - you may prefer these versions to the Kapp LP.
As you may have noticed on the cover above, the LP also includes a program with actor Edward G. Robinson. I didn't include it in the download, but if you are interested, my friend Ernie offered it a number of years ago on his blog, and it's still available. Ernie has already embarked on a full month and probably more of Christmas sharity, so head on over to his place.
LINK to Jack's Sing a Song of Christmas program
Addendum (December 11) - Ernie has now shared his stereo copy of this record. You can find it here.
Firestone Presents Your Favorite Christmas Music
Firestone's cover might lead you to think that Jones is featured throughout the album. But no, he is on just three songs, which I've excerpted for this post. The record comes from 1967 (not 1963, as I had asserted wrongly in the first version of this post).
He is heard on two carols: "O Little Town of Bethlehem," which he would re-record in 1969; and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," where he is joined by the skillful Roberta Peters.
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| Roberta Peters |
There is one secular song, and it is something of a buried gem. The LP introduced "This Is That Time of the Year" by Edward Thomas and Martin Charnin. Thomas is apparently still an active composer, both in pop and classical realms. Lyricist Charnin, who died in 2019, was a most interesting fellow. He was in the original cast of West Side Story, then wrote for cabaret and off-Broadway before moving to Broadway as the lyricist of Mary Rodgers' Hot Spot. He was subsequently to work with Mary's father Richard on Two by Two, but had his greatest success with Annie (music by Charles Strouse), a hit on Broadway in 1978 and thereafter.
But back to the song at hand. Let me call on loyal reader luckymike for his eloquent view, offered in the comments to my recent Jones post:
My humble addition to this tribute is a special hats-off to his delightful recording of a Christmas song that (IMO) should have become a standard: "This Is That Time Of The Year". Known and loved (by me) from Vol. 6 of the wonderful Firestone "Your Favorite Christmas Music" promo record series, this recording has pedigree to spare. Memorable, hook-y waltz melody by composer Edward Thomas. Lovely, warm, and unmistakable arrangement by Irwin Kostal. And especially clever, evocative lyrics by Broadway's Martin Charnin.Captured in the smart, internally-rhyming wordplay are several memorably fresh, affectionate images of pop Christmas that are under-represented by many other holiday tunes. (Things like holding out a little money from the paycheck for holiday shopping, kids who should be in bed, and "presents that you'll never use." A favorite of mine is "...windows are dressed in ribbons of silk / and Junior drinks all of his milk...")Best of all is a peerless, comfy performance by Jones, for whom all of this rolls of his tongue with a smile and a twinkle. It simply will never be Christmas without this song, and now that I think of it, perhaps I love that it never caught on as a standard, so that it lives frozen in time as a singularly perfect recording, and a nostalgic snapshot of American Christmases of a very different era.
Thanks, Mike! You'll note when listening to these numbers that Jones sings in a higher key for this song (and in general does so on his pop records) that for the two carols.
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| Irwin Kostal |
As Mike mentioned, he arrangements for this LP were by the distinguished Irwin Kostal, who would receive an Oscar in 1965 for his work on The Sound of Music. I recently featured Kostal on my other blog with his recording of music from West Side Story. He shared the credit for that EP with Sid Ramin, his co-orchestrator for the Broadway show.
LINK to Jack's songs from Firestone Presents Your Favorite Christmas Music
A Jack Jones Christmas
From the looks of the cover, you wouldn't know this is a Christmas record if it wasn't for the title, but then it came out in 1969, when orange, yellow and high-key images were the fashion.
Regardless, it's a good record, although the Scrooges at RCA limited the song quotient to 10 rather than the standard 12.
The arranger for all but one song on this record was old stalwart Pete King. The sound is good.
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| Pete King at his ease |
Jack or Pete had the good taste to include one of Alfred Burt's most beloved songs, "Some Children See Him." (The original recording can be found here.)
They also included the pietistic "Little Altar Boy" in an unexpected gospel version with the singer adopting phrasing reminiscent of Lou Rawls. In a similar vein is Jack's recording of "Oh Happy Day," which had been a hit the year before for the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Neither song is strictly speaking a Christmas number.
The LP also included another recent hit, Percy Faith's "Christmas Is ...", with lyrics by Spence Maxwell. Also new was "Christmas Day" by the brilliant team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, written for the musical Promises, Promises. Jack picks his way carefully through Burt's tricky rhythms and unexpected modulations.
The only song on the album that Jones had recorded before is "O Little Town of Bethlehem," which was on the Firestone LP.
LINK to A Jack Jones Christmas
One More Track
I have the record and will transfer it if and when I find it. Until then, I've cleaned up an mp3 version of Jack's song, which I've appended to the RCA Victor LP above, since it was an RCA recording.
