It's A Holiday Soul Party

Soul queen Sharon Jones does a cool retro-sounding holiday record. You know what you're getting; it's good stuff. No FCCs.

1. (3:43) *** Sprightly R&B number about Hannukah; plenty of references to Judaica. Cool horn section does a minor-key take on 'Dreidel.'
2. (2:23) **** Soul opening segues to jingling of bells. "Ain't no chimneys in the projects." Storytelling with great vocalizations. Sweet strings.
3. (2:18) **** Super up-tempo of "White Christmas" with nice syncopation.
4. (3:09) *** Medley of a couple dozen Christmas standard with heavy soul bass. Clever.
5. (4:16) **** "Silent Night" with a cool bluesy sax section, and swung hard.
6. (2:57) ***** Wonderfully sunny harmonized number about "big bulbs." Baby, you got them big bulbs.
7. (2:59) ** Pretty faithful rendition of the 1960 blues hit (aka "Bells Will Be Ringing"). Good, but not really very different.
8. (3:19) ** Little Drummer Boy, but funky.
9. (3:19) **** "Silver Bells." Slow intro, then great and uptempo and soulful.
10. (3:19) ***** An original written by and sung by bandmember Binky Griptite. GREAT soul number, and wonderful string arrangement. Wow. Three tracks are 3:19 in a row. Huh.
11. (2:17) **** Saxes in harmony, "god rest ye merry gentlemen." Instrumental, super funky.