“More than any other time of the year, Christmas is the season of friendship. We all have friends, some we see every day, others we may not see for years on end. Yet, at least once each year, we interact with them all... And of course, it's the songs of Christmas that perennially underscore that feeling of good will around the world. And when we talk of songs, you can't exclude Frank Sinatra from the Christmas scene. Over the years there have been numerous Sinatra Christmas albums, but this one is both special and different.” — Ken Barnes

Picture the “Chairman of the Board” with some of his friends celebrating a heartwarming Christmas through a dozen tracks of memorable holiday music on the wonderful CD, “Christmas With Sinatra And Friends.” The result is this fine release from Concord Records. The songs in this collection were recorded many moons ago and taken from various albums, but they surely sound fresh and unsullied as if they were just recorded recently. The sound quality is superb. Thank goodness for the wonders of modern recording/remastering technology!

The Sinatra cuts are primarily Christmas songs from his post-Capitol career and there are a few nice surprises that aren't featuerd on any of his original Christmas albums: from Frank's 1957 holiday TV show, we get renditions of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” as well as “Mistletoe And Holly,” sung while Mr. S’s voice was in its Capitol-era prime.

The recordings by Mel Torme (his evergreen “The Christmas Song”) and Rosemary Clooney (“White Christmas”) are from the very good holiday albums that they made in the 100-s for Concord. Tony Bennett performs “A Child Is Born” with virtuoso jazz pianist Bill Evans. Of course, you can't go wrong with Ray Charles and Better Carter on the witer duet classic, “Baby It's Cold Outside.”

The producers of this album did a nice job of picking some stylistically consistent tracks by Sinatra's peers to spice up what might have been just another reissue of Frank's Christmas music. (Good as it is, most of it is out there already).

So throw another log on the fire and turn up the stereo and listen to a delightful collection of holiday favorites.

To sample some of the tracks, click the speaker icon below to hear them. Then scroll down the page to order today!