Allen Toussaint & Friends

A NEW ORLEANS CHRISTMAS

(NYNO)

If anyone's qualified to deliver a New Orleans-style Christmas album it's the city's legendary producer/songwriter Allen Toussaint. He uses the occasion to boost his NYNO label, giving at least one track to everyone on the roster. Resident bluesman Wallace Johnson puts some real-life detail into "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" ("It might take six months to pay these bills/Every time I think about it, it gives me chills"); and the New Birth Brass Band steal the show with a second-line version of "Jingle Bells." But other tracks lean toward a laid-back brand of '70s retro-soul, especially the two by Raymond Myles -- who's usually the Little Richard of gospel but here keeps his flamboyance too much in check. It's too bad Toussaint didn't write any tunes for the occasion -- a real New Orleans Christmas would have more of Toussaint and less of his friends.

-- Brett Milano

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