Christmas With the Rat Pack

I only have a few Christmas CDs, but the one I play every year is Christmas With the Rat Pack, a collection of carols, both secular and sacred, by the main trio of that group: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. Although by the time I was an adult they were well past their prime, over the years I've learned to appreciate what great entertainers they were in the fifties and sixties.

This album is a mixed bag. Sinatra's contributions are mostly tender and almost elegiac. He handles most of the nativity-based tunes, such as "The First Noel", "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." He also contributes a melancholy "I'll Be Home for Christmas," and has a perfect version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (this approach is apt, since the song's origins are Judy Garland singing it to cheer up her forlorn siblings in Meet Me in St. Louis). He's less successful with the more carefree "Mistletoe and Holly," singing it as if he didn't understand the words.

Davis, perhaps because of his Jewish faith, steers clear of the Christian stuff and stays secular. He has an unspectacular version of "Jingle Bells" and a rather staid turn with "The Christmas Song," especially when compared to the incomparable version by Nat King Cole. A previously unreleased recording of him singing "Christmas Time All Over the World" with a children's chorus is reminiscent of his hit "Candy Man."

The treasure of this album is the work of Dean Martin, who has been criminally underrated due, I guess, to his seeming nonchalance, both as an actor and a singer. His vocals are known by their boozy insouciance, and they are clearly evident here, especially on the cold weather quartet of "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", "Winter Wonderland," and "Baby, It's Cold Outside." He handles "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with typical Rat Pack ring-a-ding-ness, changing the lyric to "Rudy the red-beaked reindeer," and you can hear the Champagne bubbles in his voice as he croons "Silver Bells." But he also had the pipes necessary to belt out a lovely version of "Silent Night."

The album ends with a couple of live numbers from Martin's TV show, accompanied by Sinatra, on "A Marshmallow World" and "Auld Lang Syne." By then these guys had pretty much given up on being artists and were now just clowning around for their own amusement. Even still, they had enough chops to make the season bright, as they still do.