Trying to keep the classic crooners from recording traditional Christmas songs is like trying to keep the sun from rising in the morning.  It is just simply going to happen.  This year, Tony Bennett returns with a new Christmas album that puts good ole swing into the mix.  He invites the Count Basie Big Band to help him make another classic – and swingin’ – Christmas collection that will have decades’ worth of mileage.

Tony Bennett needs no introduction to us.  He is our living premier vocalist from a period where music was different.  And he adds his inimitable style with the class of good, old-fashioned swing as contributed by the Count Basie Big Band.

The traditional tunes found on this album include a jumpin’ version of “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” a usually mellow piece that is fun to listen to especially with that Big Band sound behind the song.  Things really take off with a perfect – and happy – rendition of the ‘made for the city’ classic, “Silver Bells” that just happens to work everywhere you want to be.  Things get pretty timeless with a traditional classic music style that we all remember from a different time in “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the superbly sung “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “The Christmas Waltz,” and the stunning version of “Christmas Time is Here.”

“Winter Wonderland” gets the Big Band treatment as does “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”  An included treat is a duet sung with Bennett’s daughter, Antonia.  They share the pipe duties on a Big Band version of Irving Berlin’s “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.”  The album closes with a heart-warming “O Christmas Tree.”

The album contains eleven tracks, every one a song destined to be played back 20, 30 years from now with the same familial warmth that Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Ray Conniff tunes now provide.

Tony Bennett’s A Swingin’ Christmas is a “…olden days, happy golden days of yore…” classic that you can treasure year after year.  Yes, it has that definite aura of timelessness about it.

Have yourselves a merry little Holiday no matter your persuasion.  We can all use the peaceful moments.  May your candles shine brightly.