Ella & Louis Christmas

An appearance in Hollywood for a first-rate jazz vocalist was not necessarily an opportunity to broadcast the singer's visage and pander to everyone from Tacoma to Tallahassee. It could also include a date at the Crescendo. The Sunset Strip's best chance to find premier jazz, Gene Norman's nightclub hosted dozens of jazz legends (and a comic or two), and produced more than its share of excellent LPs recorded on location. Better even than Mel Tormé's 1954 classic, the Ella Fitzgerald LP that resulted from her May 1961 appearances generated one of the best (and certainly most underrated) live records in her discography. All of her hallmarks - technical wizardry, breakneck scatting, irrepressible humor and warmth - are on full display, with a small but expressive quartet backing her performance (including pianist Lou Levy, guitarist Herb Ellis, drummer Gus Johnson, and bassist Wilfred Middlebrooks)…

Christmas Jump & Jive is one of two holiday-themed compilations included in Rod McKuen's series "Songs That Won The War." This collection is sourced primarily from radio broadcasts and transcriptions. It is a strange package: many of the selections are not holiday tunes; many are not from the 1940s, much less the war years; and some of the track titles are dubious at best: the "Quiet Christmas Riot" attributed to Buddy Rich is plain old "Quiet Riot," and Benny Goodman's "Jingle Bell Jive" is the 1935 "Jingle Bells" recorded for Victor. But buried in the filler are some rare gems: a breakneck broadcast version of Duke Ellington's "Ring Dem Bells"; a rare parody of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" by the equally rare pairing of Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald; and a broadcast performance of Nat King Cole's "Mrs. Santa Claus."

With five discs and 100 tracks, this holiday set is expansive and interesting. Some of the sides will be familiar to nearly everyone – classics like Bing Crosby's version of “White Christmas” and Perry Como's “Winter Wonderland” pop up in the stores and all over the radio dial during the season’s festivities – but other selections here are fairly rare and give things a depth that a lot of holiday collections don’t reach…