Christmas Jazz Jam in twenty years. For the album, Marsalis assembled a group of ten musicians to perform uncredited arrangements of twelve holiday standards. Following "Mary Had a Baby" are traditional New Orleans jazz-style renditions of "Jingle Bells" (James Pierpont) and "Blue Christmas" (Billy Hayes, Jay W. Johnson). Kirk Silsbee of the "Los Angeles Times" awarded the album three of four stars and called the arrangements "smart yet not ostentatious". In 2009 "Christmas Jazz Jam" reached peak positions of number six on "Billboard" Jazz Albums chart, number nine on the Top Holiday Albums chart, and number nineteen on the Top Independent Albums chart.
Christmas Time Is Here Christmas Time Is Here "Christmas Time Is Here" is a popular Christmas song written by Lee Mendelson and Vince Guaraldi for the 1965 TV special "A Charlie Brown Christmas", one of the first animated Christmas specials produced for network TV in the United States. Because the song became a hit, two versions were included on the album "A Charlie Brown Christmas": an instrumental version by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and a vocal version by choristers from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael, California. The first person to record a cover version of the song was jazz guitarist Ron Escheté