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 in the Air Again tempo of 50 beats per minute; Carey's voice spans just short of two octaves from F♯ to E. On November 26, 2012, Carey announced via her Twitter account that "Christmas Time Is in the Air Again" would be released as a promotional single. "The Village Voice" writer Rich Juzwiak felt that "Christmas Time Is in the Air Again" was the only song on "Merry Christmas II You" that matched "the magic" of her 1994 single "All I Want for Christmas Is You", describing it as "exquisite". He continued to write that it is "a sweeping big-band ballad that you'd swear