Search - Dean Martin :: A Very Cool Christmas

An Extremely Cool Yule with Dino

Official Use Only | 12/19/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Dean released two albums of Christmas music during his career: "A Winter Romance," which he recorded in the late 1950's with Capitol Records, and "The Dean Martin Christmas Album," which he recorded in 1966 for Reprise. "A Winter Romance" has been readily available on CD in its original form, but, for whatever reason, "The Dean Martin Christmas Album" never has been, although all but one of the songs from it, his 1960's recording of "The Things We Did Last Summer," have been available on various compilation Christmas albums Capitol has issued on CD over the past decade or so. For those of you who have been waiting for the 1966 recordings to be released as an album in their original sequence (and didn't care to compile your own version), "A Very Cool Christmas" is finally here. So, what's the big deal? Well, of the two original albums, "The Dean Martin Christmas Album," while brief (its original running time was only about 35 minutes), was recorded at the height of Dean's popularity and, as such, really captures the laid back, fun and swinging atmosphere that made his weekly NBC TV show a huge favorite in the mid- to late '60's. For me, while I have enjoyed the entire album for many years, the standout recordings are Dean's versions of "Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland" and "Marshmallow World." If any of these don't bring a smile to your face, then, as Dino tells Dasher and Dancer in "Jingle Bells" "go on, get outa here." The last track on this album, "Silent Night/Peace on Earth" was recorded earlier than the rest, and while it's quite nicely done, is slightly out of place in being a bit more formal than the rest. In any event, if you want to significantly increase the cool in your Yule, you can't go wrong with this album. By the way, the sound quality of the recordings on this album also merits five stars - best I've ever heard."