Review: Klezmatics at Walt Disney Concert Hall

The Klezmatics' Hanukkah music show at Disney Hall is a refreshing change-up from Christmas carols this holiday season.


The bestselling album in the nation right now is Michael Bublé's "Christmas," and at last count there were eight collections of Christmas music in the Top 30 of the national album sales chart. Christmas music is inescapable, whether it's being piped in at the mall, at the coffee shop, or via a co-worker's cellphone ring tone.

All of which made the Klezmatics' presentation of Hanukkah music on Monday at Walt Disney Concert Hall a refreshing reminder that the holidays aren't exclusively dedicated to Christmas.

During a rich, vibrant two-hour concert the day before Hanukkah's eight-day observance began, the veteran New York-based band dug deep into a trove of songs and styles that originated long ago among Jews living in Eastern Europe and played to a near-capacity crowd.

The sextet masterfully (and seemingly effortlessly) expressed the celebratory and sentimental feelings that are fundamental facets of traditional klezmer music. Such feelings aren't limited to any one culture, of course, and the Klezmatics succeeded in making the music feel universal while still meeting the expectations of those familiar with that genre.

Holiday music: Justin Bieber, Michael Bublé, Tony Bennett and more

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

The late, great Hunter S. Thompson once said, “When the going gets weird,the weird turn pro.” Or they make a Christmas album -- or both. Either way, any year that brings holiday releases from human Ken dolls Justin Bieber and David Archuleta, Stone Temple Pilots drama king Scott Weiland and the chipper cast of “Glee” certainly scores high on the “Seriously?!” scale. Here are the high and lowlights from the latest volley of holiday music albums.

*** Paul Anka, “Songs of December” (Decca). Now an elder statesman of old-school pop, Anka sounds fully in control of the myriad resources afforded him for his first holiday recording in half a century. Inventive arrangements contribute strongly to his approach as a genial latter-day compadre of Der Bingle or Tony Bennett. Nothing remotely revolutionary, but plenty of comfort food for the ears.

** David Archuleta and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, “Glad Christmas Tidings” (Mormon Tabernacle Choir). Anyone on your list who thinks Jerry Bruckheimer is too subtle? Here’s the holiday CD for them. The Mormon “American Idol” alum from Utah is surrounded by the choral army on his second Christmas collection, recorded live last year in Salt Lake City. His sweetness and charm come through best on the Spanish-language traditional “Los pastores a belen.” A PBS special of this performance is airing this month.

*** Tony Bennett, “The Classic Christmas Album” (RPM/Columbia/Legacy). These 18 tracks, largely drawn from Bennett's previous holiday releases going back to 1968, are every bit as consistently classy as we'd expect from the pop master. The CD also includes one previously unreleased recording of “What Child Is This.”

Live review: Aimee Mann skips the merry and bright in Christmas concert

The singer-songwriter and other musical guests at Largo at the Coronet take a sometimes skeptical, sometimes irreverent, and often funny take on the holidays.

As a piece of dramatic scaffolding, the holiday variety show offers plenty of room from which to hang well-worn material: Christmas music, bits of children's theater, jokes about what to get your mother-in-law. The form doesn't typically include repeated references to Charles Manson, but that didn't stop Aimee Mann from bringing up the convicted killer several times Monday night at Largo at the Coronet, where she and a group of all-star pals played the second of three Christmas concerts scheduled there this week.

"Will you please stop talking about murder?" pleaded comedian Paul F. Tompkins with mock exasperation near the end of the two-hour show.

A longtime fixture (along with her husband, Michael Penn) on the L.A. singer-songwriter scene, Mann takes a skeptical approach to the yuletide repertoire. (The Largo engagement marked the fourth year in a row that she's played Christmas shows, either in Southern California or on the road.) On Monday she described her objections to "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" "on moral grounds" and singled out "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" as her favorite holiday song.

"It's a little spooky and a little creepy," she explained. "That's how I like to think of myself."

Not your usual seasonal sounds

From Bob Dylan tackling 'Here Comes Santa Claus' to the "Avenue Q' puppets doing 'Ave Maria,' there's something for everyone.

It's become an annual ritual -- the flooding of the music market with dozens, if not hundreds, of holiday-themed titles, and this year is no exception. Plenty of artists are releasing festive recordings, and labels are hoping all that good cheer will translate to some sales uplift.

In the mix are offerings from a crystalline-voiced would-be American Idol and from a sandpaper-throated bona fide American icon. Sting does some musical time traveling and one adventurous experimentalist beams the spirit of the season into the vastness of deep space.

What follows is a look at some of the most interesting collections available right now:

David Archuleta, "Christmas From the Heart" (19/Jive): America's favorite elfin pop idol, Archie sounds every bit as spot-on key and invested with holiday reverence and good cheer as humanly possible -- and nearly as predictable. But given that "American Idol" is about meeting popular expectations rather than exceeding (much less defying) them, it's somehow comforting that within the familiar arrangements and production touches are a few intriguing touches such as the musical quotations of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" into his version of "Angels We Have Heard on High."  * * 1/2 (Two and a half stars)


Andrea Bocelli, "My Christmas" (Decca). There's always an audience for yuletide music sung in a romantic tenor voice, and this year, Bocelli's under the tree. He's brought along several vocal partners including Natalie Cole, Mary J. Blige and Reba McEntire -- even the Muppets and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As usual with operatic singers for whom English is a second language, Bocelli tends to succeed better with carols than with pop tunes.  * * 1/2 (Two and a half stars)