How Herb Alpert Made the Most Underrated Jewish Christmas Album of All Time »
But there’s one full-length Jewish Christmas record that rarely gets its just due: Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass’s wonderful “Christmas Album.” Having already dominated Billboard’s Easy Listening charts for much of the 1960s with instrumental albums like “Whipped Cream & Other Delights” and “!!!Going Places!!!” Alpert and the Tijuana Brass applied their patented “Ameriachi” sound to 10 Christmas-related tracks, unveiling the festive results on December 16, 1968. Though the sunny and playful record might have seemed like an odd capper to a tumultuous year of riots and political assassinations — and undoubtedly sounded like it was beamed from an entirely different universe than the Beatles’ “White Album,” the Rolling Stones’ “Beggars Banquet” or Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland,” all of which had hit the shelves in the preceding weeks — it immediately soared to the top of Billboard’s Christmas charts upon its release.
In retrospect, it’s not hard to understand why: “Aural comfort food” would certainly be one way of describing “Christmas Album.” The record’s lush choir and string arrangements by Shorty Rogers (a Jewish trumpeter who was one of the originators of West Coast jazz) contrast beautifully with the TJB’s spare, lightly swinging approach. On upbeat tracks like “Winter Wonderland,” “Jingle Bells,” “My Favorite Things” and “Sleigh Ride,” the overall effect is kind of like dozing off in front of the fire in a spiked eggnog reverie, then dreaming that you’re sailing in Santa’s sleigh across the Southern California sky on a 72-degree December afternoon, as the tinsel-wrapped palm trees below you sparkle brightly in the sun.
There’s time for fireside romancing, too, as the Tijuana Brass[ slows down “Let It Snow!!”(penned by Jews Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne) to a smooch-worthy tempo, and Alpert puts down his trumpet and takes the microphone for a slow-burning rendition of “The Christmas Song,” delivered in the same gentle, breathy manner as “This Guy’s in Love With You,” the Burt Bacharach/Hal David composition that he’d taken to No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts earlier in the year. And speaking of Bacharach, Alpert also essays a vocal version of “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle,” a song penned by Bacharach with fellow tribe member Larry Kusik. Though essentially a second-rate “Rudolph”-type story-song (Spoiler Alert: Thanks to the timely intercession of one Jack Frost, the titular bell eventually goes “jingling all the way”), it’s still kind of a kick to hear the best-selling Jewish bandleader of the 1960s joining forces with one of the decade’s hottest Jewish songwriters to serve up a Christmas song.
That sense of joyous cultural crossover is really one of the most magical things about “Christmas Album,” and it’s present everywhere, from the cover — on which Alpert, a nice Jewish boy from Los Angeles’s Fairfax District, dons a Santa hat and beard — to the contemplative interpretation of the traditional Mexican song “Las Mañanitas,” arranged by Baja Marimba Band leader Julius Wechter (also a Jew), and the lovely choral rendition of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” which closes the record. “Christmas Album” isn’t just about Jews successfully assimilating into mainstream American culture (though there’s certainly an aspect of that to the record, as well); it’s also about the many cosmic possibilities inherent in Jews and Christians peacefully coming together to celebrate the birthday of the man who was both the most important Jewish and Christian figure in the history of the world.
And it’s all delivered with the sort of snappy-yet-laidback tunefulness that pairs marvelously with the holiday cocktail of your choice. Once considered the very epitome of Squaresville, the Tijuana Brass catalog has undergone something of a critical rehabilitation over the past two decades, thanks to increased interest in The Wrecking Crew (the all-star group of L.A. session musicians who played on a staggering number of hits in the 1960s and ’70s, including many by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass) and to a renewed appreciation for the easy listening sounds of their era. Alpert and the TJB’s “Christmas Album” — which has been reissued multiple times over the past 25 years, most recently last November via the Herb Alpert Presents label — will hopefully find a bigger 21st-century audience as well. After all, in these strange and unsettling times, who among us couldn’t use a reassuring dose of Herb for the holidays?
This Christmas Eve, when my wife and I observe the first night of Hanukkah by lighting our electric menorah, we’ll have the TJB “Christmas Album” on the turntable. And for those 32 minutes or so, all will seem right with the world.
Dan Epstein is the author of, most recently, “Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76.”
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