Mike Renzi with Jim Porcella have recorded a solid jazz Christmas album, December Is: Christmas Duets. Sure to become a holiday favorite with all who purchase it, this album offers lively, warm, and time tested standards and one likable original co-written by Renzi. These tunes have been arranged here as accessible jazz, classy as well as moving.
Opening cut “Cool Yule,” a standard by Steve Allen, gets the hip jazz piano treatment. Renzi taps out a line one could snap their fingers to. It crackles with lively tones. Vocalist Jim Porcella applies his baritone voice to the melody line with his own hip aplomb, finessing 1950s jive.
“The Christmas Song,” written by Mel Torme and Rupert Wells and popularized by Frank Sinatra, is infused with holiday spirit among the sophisticated tinkling and the sly baritone vocals. While these musicians are precise, they maintain enough warmth for this to be a family gathering song as well as something that would play well in one of their jazz piano bar gigs.
“The Holiday Song” by Carroll Coates engages with a peppy piano line from Renzi and a vocal line from Porcella that rides the melody just right. Piano notes here percolate like they’re dancing and Porcella glides over that line with personal oomph in his delivery, continuously finding the right spaces to chime in.
Filled with romantic bliss, “Our First Christmas” celebrates a couple’s first holiday season together. Renzi, who wrote this with Judy Barron, keeps plenty of space open for guest musician Paul Del Nero’s upright bass joy and some other keyboard lines added into this recording. That open space lets the positive sounding major key notes ring out with sweet tenderness. There is also polite, unobtrusive drumming from Vinny Pagano. From there, Porcella only needs to move his baritone vocal over the affectionate tones with his own run of notes.
A somber reflection, “Blue Christmas,” commiserates with the lonely at this time of year. Minor key notes from Renzi and a more subdued, self-restrained vocal from Porcella keep this one in respectful melancholy mood, showing there is still beauty and tenderness in appreciating those things we have to go without. Renzi’s piano notes fall soft and slow as tears while maintaining a sadness in his tinkling.
Title track “Christmas Is” feels like broad strokes of holiday joy. Porcella’s vocal, infused with emotion as he lists many jolly things, blankets emotive piano notes with his honey smooth voice, sending out waves of something warm and sweet, making this song feel happy and celebratory.
Winter weather descriptions contrasts perfectly with the loving vibe on Irvin Berlin’s “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.” Renzi plays brisk chords beneath Porcella’s affectionate ebullience, a second contrast within this arrangement that keeps it moving forward with an enthusiastic pace. Porcella exclaims his relationship with long, beautiful, heartfelt sustains, letting the listener feel what this song means.
“A Christmas Love Song” turns the holiday spirit back toward the romantic. Here, Porcella takes his sweet time unfurling his warm, husky tone. He caresses each verse with his tender interpretation, creating a largeness of spirit, a festive holiday vibe that flows over and contrasts sharply, brightly with Renzi’s brittle piano tinkling. While Porcella maintains a consistent tempo and dynamic, Renzi develops a contrasting crescendo of piano notes. Additionally, Renzi adds an emotive string section beneath piano and voice, enveloping both in an additional layer of sweet sounds.
“Snowfall,” by Claude Thornhill, brings beautiful lyrical images of a winter landscape. Porcella’s delivery showcases the sentimental feeling everyone has for these kinds of winter scenes. Yet, his warm delivery makes us forget the cold winter temperatures that come with this season. He sings at a considerate pace, slowly, quietly, letting the lyrics breathe and speak for themselves with an understated grace. Renzi’s gentle piano tinkling adds a second layer of emotional fiber, like throwing a quilt over an already warm blanket.
Closing out with “Winter Wonderland,” the pair leaves us with a fun, lively rendition. Porcella’s leads with an enthusiasm for this song, his voice traveling the melody line with personal glee. Beneath that golden voice Renzi’s piano chops allow for the vocal to have a soft landing pad. The notes, like children walking home from early grades, seem to hold hands with that voice.
Renzi and Porcella have come up with a perfect Christmas gift as well as the perfect mood piece for holiday gatherings. This CD could play over and over again during a holiday season date, or while Christmas shopping, or along a lengthy drive to grandmother’s on Christmas day. The CD package comes with liner notes from Rex Reed, and the disc was produced by Steve Rizzo at Stable Sound Studio and released on the Whaling City Sound label.
