CD Review: "Matt Wilson's Christmas Tree-O"

I’d rather hear jazz artists perform Christmas songs than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (way rather than Mannheim Steamroller or, just shoot me, Mariah Carey) and have somehow accumulated several holiday CDs over the years. You have to love An Oscar Peterson Christmas and Marcus Roberts’ Prayer for Peace, Chet Baker’s icy-cool Silent Nights, and the great Joe Williams’ warm and swinging That Holiday Feelin’. 

Actually, I thought I had all the Christmas jazz albums I would ever need, and then came Matt Wilson’s Christmas Tree-O, just out on Palmetto.

I’ve seen Wilson play live several times and he always makes me happy. Some musicians—Dave Holland is another—exude genuine joy when they play, and when you’re in the room, you feel it. Christmas Tree-O is a good-natured collection, and good-humored, putting “The Chipmunk Song” side-by-side with “Winter Wonderland,” tossing in “Mele Kalikimaki” (in a surprising klezmer arrangement) and speeding through “Little Drummer Boy,” a song that was utterly ruined for me the day I heard a plodding and deadly Celtic version. 

Each song is taken seriously as music, none is treated as a joke, and all are turned into real jazz, creative and unpredictable. Who else would merge Albert Ayler’s “Angels” with “Angels We Have Heard on High” and add toy piano? Or turn Handel’s revered “Hallelujah Chorus” into free jazz?