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.
James Pierpont (minister) James Pierpont (minister) James Pierpont (January 4, 1659 – November 22, 1714) was a Congregationalist minister who is credited with the founding of Yale University in the United States. In 1701, Pierpont secured the charter for The Collegiate School of Connecticut, which soon thereafter took the surname of its benefactor Elihu Yale. He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on January 4, 1659. He attended The Roxbury Latin School and Harvard University. James Pierpont married in 1698 as his third wife Mary Hooker, daughter of Rev. Samuel Hooker and granddaughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker, chief founder of the Colony of Connecticut.