Album Review: Ted Nash and Kristen Lee Sergeant Give Reason To Celebrate The HOLIDAYS

While at my desk editing the recent Erin Samms review of two singles from the new CD titled HOLIDAYS by jazz proficients Ted Nash and Kristen Lee Sergeant, I found myself thinking, “I gotta hear this album when it comes out.”  It’s no secret that I am an admirer of the jazz duo that is a couple in real life - I think they are responsible for some of the most intricate and nuanced recordings in the jazz genre, and any day that there is new product coming out in the world by Kristen and Ted is a good day.

Well, this is a great day because HOLIDAYS is easily the most artistic Christmas album I have ever heard in my life.

Now, I don’t want people to think I’m just whistlin’ Dixie here (are we still allowed to say that?) because for years I was a Christmas person, decades even.  At sixty, and with a lot of life experience that changed my points of view along the way, I am less inclined to the holiday season, to Santa Claus, and to Jesus, so the truth is that December, these days, is just another month to me.  BUT (and this is a big but) I still love Christmas music.  I still love hearing what artists are creating and how they are finding new ways to make the music of the season interesting, rather than simply regurgitating that which we have already heard (which is bad) or making muck out of their intention to make something that is new (which is worse).  For my entire adult life I had a tradition of, each holiday season, adding three new holiday albums to my collection (which is, by now, enormous), so I kind of know what I’m talking about when it comes to Christmas albums.  And I’m not kidding when I say this: HOLIDAYS is the most artistic Christmas album I know.

Kristen Lee Sergeant, possessing of one of those voices you never tire of hearing, is straight-forward and confident in her performances on the forty-four minute CD.  Playful and sensual, she acts as a sort of guide, leading down the holiday path.  She isn’t taking the journey with you, she stands apart from you, yet without ever becoming aloof.  She welcomes you to the musical experience with that voice like hot buttered rum, the surface of which never ripples inside of the mug.  She is the essence of smooth, calm and commanding… except on the track “Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)” which is an angry, forceful, demanding lynchpin of the album that occurs strangely early in the set.  It is bold, it is daring, and it is electrifying, thanks to her work and, particularly, thanks to Ted’s insistent and unapologetic arrangement and the wild yet contained cacophony created through the artistry of every musician and every instrument participating in the true ensemble piece.   This is the moment when you know that you’re not just listening to any old holiday album - you are listening to a symphony, a movement, a song cycle designed to make you think, feel, and acknowledge that Christmas is more than just shiny balls in a cut crystal bowl and candy canes hot glued to a wreath on a door.

Ted and Kristen start out HOLIDAYS with “Snowbound” (one of the two singles in Erin’s earlier review HERE) and it is a jovial jazzy way to welcome the listener to their holiday party.  It’s elegant and sophisticated, sexy and smart, and a perfect representation of those days that happen as the season is beginning… think the week between Thanksgiving and December 1st, when it’s too early for holiday stress and you can relax and have fun at a different holiday party every night of the week.  It’s a grand way to kick off the cd and the season.  Segue to a similarly smartly arranged “My Favorite Things” in which the solos take center stage while Sergeant uses unique phrasing and precise syncopation to make the ubiquitous not-so-holiday song happily something new (which this writer always thought impossible).  With “Solstice” Ted and Kristen pull things back, emotionally and atmospherically, to calm the nerves and warm the heart, giving the listener the most lush and lovely track on the album; it is, fully, an audible representation of a nature walk, either at midnight or the break of dawn, on any weekend day of winter, and it is a wonderful way to lull the listener into a sense of musical reverie as they prepare to hit you with the gorgeously bright light of the above mentioned “Blue Xmas,” after which you, the listener, have been informed: your attention is now required… no, really required.

After the artistic triumph that is “Blue Xmas” the duo brings the listener back into a more tactile mood of celebration with a recording of “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve” that will have you reaching for your lover’s hand for a spin on any floor you would care to nominate, be it dance, living room, or kitchen.  Their “Sleigh Ride” is (again!) an artistic smash, thanks to Ted’s stunning arrangement, and it isn’t a delayed reaction - he kicks it into high gear, out of the gate, and the tension builds, with all the musicians joining in the fun (it feels kind of like a musical snowball fight) until, finally, there is our leader, the Pied Piper of Jazz, Kristen Lee Sergeant, at the center mic, vocally conducting the symphony of magnificent musicians reveling in Ted Nash’s treatment.  Speaking honestly, this is the MOST overdone Christmas song for me, the one I don’t ever want to hear (well… there are a couple of those, but that’s another story), and Ted and Kristen have renewed my interest in the composition with this cut.  

And then we reach the artistic climax of the album.  And even though there are two more fabulous cuts after it (“The Christmas Song” and “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm”), for this writer, this recording of “A Child Is Born” is the best one since Nancy LaMott’s 1994 recording, which will, for personal reasons, always be my favorite.  Here, though, Sergeant and Nash have created a completely new, totally original representation of a song that has been tried out by nearly everyone, and everyone needs to just cut it out, now.  Ted and Kristen have done the heavy lifting.  It’s done.

HOLIDAYS is a great album, holiday or otherwise.  It’s a jazz album and no mistake, and there will be those who might think it won’t be for them because the technical aspects of many jazz Christmas albums can tend to strip the compositions of the emotion one hopes to find in holiday recordings (I can make a list) but that isn’t the case here.  Even though the treatments are highly (HIGHLY) jazz-informed and complex, this album is ALL emotion.  It is, every inch of it, about holidays and humanity, and every feeling you might feel, from the good (“My Favorite Things”) to the bad (“Blue Xmas”) and to the touching (“A Child Is Born”).  I tell you, HOLIDAYS is that rare thing: a Christmas album you will find yourself listening to in the summertime.  To that end, it’s the Christmas gift that keeps on giving, all year ‘round, rather than just chilling on the shelf or the iTunes library for eleven months of the year, waiting for the holidays to come around again.

HOLIDAYS is a 2023 release on Sunnyside Records, available on all digital platforms.

The creatives credited for HOLIDAYS are:

Ted Nash - conductor, tenor & soprano saxophones, flute 

Kristen Lee Sergeant - vocals

Sherman Irby, Steve Kenyon, Ben Kono, Chris Lewis & Paul Nedzela - woodwinds

Tatum Greenblatt, Marcus Printup, Kellin Hanas, & James Zollar - trumpets

James Burton, Jennifer Krupa, Matthew McDonald - trombones

Adam Birnbaum - piano

Jay Anderson - bass

Jared Schonig - drums

The websites for:

Sunnyside Records HERE

Ted Nash HERE

Kristen Lee Sergeant HERE

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