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.
Harry Pierpont Leach suspected that Dillinger's rescue was related to the Michigan City jailbreak. He also suspected Pierpont was the "brains" behind the operations. Leach attempted to inspire friction in the ranks of the gang. During news interviews, he made a point of calling them the "Dillinger Gang", instead of the "Pierpont Gang". The ruse backfired, as Pierpont couldn't have cared less what people called the gang. The search had become so intense in Ohio for the gang that two days after freeing Dillinger they decided to split into two groups and meet in Chicago. On October 14, 1933, Dillinger, Pierpont, and