Jackie Gleason - White Christmas

White Christmas was a pretty hard album to date - there doesn't seem to be a lot of good information on it, but the nearest I can figure is Capitol licensed this out to Pickwick and they packaged it up and released it in 1970. It's a compilation likely taken from some of Jackie Gleason's prior holiday releases, and from what I've read about the budget re-issues is less is more, but most of the time, just less. 

This was one of the many Christmas albums I snapped up from the dollar bin, and this cleaned up amazingly well. It's nearly perfect, what a score.

Here we have The Great One (who was the great one long before old 99 laced 'em up) pulling out all of his lush strings and easy listening magic and applying his touch to nine holiday classics. I'll admit, this was never my favourite style of music, but there is a certain nostalgic charm to this stuff - in small doses, and I can deal with a short collection of relaxing and "happy" strings.

It's funny Jackie Gleason, depending where you are on the curve is known for The Honeymooners and his awesome chemistry with Art Carney or playing Buford T. Justice in Smokey in the Bandit. As a kid I have some vague memories of watching him as Ralph Kramden and thought it was funny. I remember hearing about his "mood music" as thought it would be comedy, kind of like Victor Borge - it wasn't funny.

The funny thing about Mr. Gleason's secondary career is that it wasn't a joke - and although he's largely forgotten now, there was a time his style of "mood music" was what was happening baby, and when he released his debut record Music for Lovers Only in 1952 it went to number one and from what I read on the wiki site, it stayed in the Billboard Top 10 for 153 weeks. That's pretty impressive. He's release an impressive number of albums, and by 1972 twenty years after his debut he'd release his last album - not counting the endless CD compilations that would follow.

So with White Christmas we get a decent collection of the best standards, all lavishly arranged, and frankly sparkling with Christmas cheer. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard a less sombre version of "Blue Christmas" it's almost too bad this wasn't a vocal version as it would be awesome to hear the singer try to convey the blues over this cheerful arrangement.

I love the copy on the back, whoever was working at Pickwick had gone to the more is more school of advertising copy. Don Draper, eat your heart out. "The Christmas card, wassail bowl, gifttrim, plum pudding, giftwraps, snow carols, firtrees. sleighrides, logfires, turkey, candles - all that is Christmas. bright and joyous is in the winter wonderland of this record."

That's a pretty tall order, and I will admit that this made me think of my mum and dad, and I'll probably put this on for her when she's here over Christmas. It'll be a welcome relief from having to play Ebb Tide by Frank Chacksfield & His Orchestra.