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Making Merry With Music

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have released “It’s a Holiday Soul Party.”Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Each holiday season brings an opportunity to tackle old standards or to add new hits to the canon. Here, the pop and jazz critics of The New York Times survey some of this year’s releases. (Prices may vary, depending on where purchases are made.)

Astrocolor “Lit Up: Music for Christmas,” Last Gang, $9.99

Don’t fret if you’ve never heard of Astrocolor; this Christmas album is its debut release. Born of a desire to create atmospheric holiday music for a contemporary palate, the group features a small coterie of musicians from western Canada. In essence it puts a wan indie gloss on music that would otherwise scan as New Age, with extra doses of reverb and pretension. NATE CHINEN

The Count Basie Orchestra “A Very Swingin’ Basie Christmas!,” Concord Jazz, $9.99

As part of its 80th-anniversary celebration, the Count Basie Orchestra has released what it calls its first full Christmas album. (Never mind that the band shared billing with Tony Bennett on a similarly titled 2008 album, “A Swingin’ Christmas.”) The orchestra has been a legacy outfit since its founder died more than 30 years ago, but it has a competent leader in the trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, and a notable Basie surrogate, Ellis Marsalis Jr., at the piano. Beyond that — and one vocal turn apiece for Johnny Mathis, Carmen Bradford and Ledisi — you probably know what to expect here, which is tradition served up with unassuming style. NATE CHINEN

The David Benoit Trio, Jane Monheit and the All-American Boys Chorus “Believe,” Concord Records, $11.59

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Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center released “Big Band Holidays.”Credit...Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Last spring the pop-jazz pianist David Benoit and the jazz-pop singer Jane Monheit released their first album together, “2 in Love,” which makes “Believe” their second collaboration. The mood is glittery and candy-cane sweet, blending wintry standards with fare including the title song from the soundtrack to “The Polar Express.” There are occasional contributions from a boys choir, and several nods to Vince Guaraldi’s music for “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” which Mr. Benoit has already exploited (um, celebrated) in holiday seasons past. NATE CHINEN

The Braxtons “Braxton Family Christmas,” Def Jam, $23.99

One long-running plotline on the WE TV series “Braxton Family Values” has been a recording reunion of Toni Braxton and her four sisters — Tamar, Trina, Towanda and Traci — who, as the Braxtons, released just one single, “Good Life/Family,” as a quintet in 1990. They came to terms for “Braxton Family Christmas,” 25 years later. This skimpy album holds just eight songs, including two versions of the R&B staple “This Christmas” — the second one changing some lyrics to announce, “This Christmas will be a Braxton Family Christmas.” Lead vocals are constantly traded off among the sisters, and no one wastes her moment, although Toni’s sultry, moody voice still stands out. (A brother, Michael, joins them on a new song he wrote, “Under My Christmas Tree.”) But it’s not all about branding, negotiation and sibling rivalry. There’s still the closeness of familial harmonies in an intricately arranged a cappella, “O Holy Night.” JON PARELES

Etienne Charles “Creole Christmas,” Culture Shock, $15

The Trinidadian trumpeter Etienne Charles has found a strong niche in the mutual exchange between jazz and calypso; it’s his angle, and probably his calling. This album, energetic and playful, revels in buoyant rhythm and tight ensemble cohesion, often with guest vocalists in the mix. And the material, a refreshing departure from the norm, includes two waltzes by the calypso giant Lionel Belasco; the Mighty Spoiler’s “Father Christmas”; and “Christmas Is Yours, Christmas Is Mine,” by the calypso artist Relator, one of the album’s featured singers. NATE CHINEN

‘A Classic Holiday … Presented by MBK’ MBK/RED, $8.99

MBK is a management and music production company with an R&B roster. Its compilation mixes old recordings, like Alicia Keys’s jazzy “Little Drummer Girl” and Brandy’s reverent “One Voice,” with more recent ones by newcomers like the Sam Cooke-styled Alex Harris, the flamboyant sometime backup singer Bridget Kelly and the a cappella group Livré, which offers a precise, tightly harmonized rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” It’s a careful, largely decorous collection of ballads until it hits its finale: B. Slade’s “Make Me Over/ Total Praise,” which starts out humbly and rises to a wailing, praying, howling gospel supplication. JON PARELES

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Brian Setzer’s third Christmas album is “Rockin’ Rudolph.”Credit...Rick Diamond/Getty Images

The dB’s and Friends “Christmas Time Again!,” Omnivore, $16.98

Folk-rocking guitars, wistful memories and bits of comic relief fill this collection, which started as a seven-song EP recorded in 1985 and has expanded through multiple reissues; this latest version is retitled “Christmas Time Again!” Long before Americana was a genre, the dB’s, whose members are originally from North Carolina, were playing so-called jangle-pop, upholding the vintage rock virtues of concise, hand-played songs and naturalistic sounds. (They were also well aware of punk in the 1½-minute “Holiday Spirit,” with the refrain “Gimme!”) The collection expanded with songs from like-minded musicians like Marshall Crenshaw, Alex Chilton (doing Mel Tormé), Ryan Adams’s band Whiskeytown and Wes Lachot from Flat Duo Jets. The album’s latest additions include a sardonic spoken-word opus by Robyn Hitchcock and a remake of Big Star’s “Jesus Christ,” sung by Mike Mills of R.E.M., staking out musical connections across the Southeast and beyond. JON PARELES

Danny Gokey “Christmas Is Here,” BMG, $7.99

Danny Gokey — church worship leader turned underappreciated “American Idol” contestant turned country music carpetbagger turned Christian pop newbie — has a robust voice that allows him to jump among his various identities without seeming out of place. On his first Christmas album, with lustrous production by Keith Thomas, he shows an ambitious interest in Christmas songs made famous by soul music titans, including “This Christmas” (Donny Hathaway) and “What Christmas Means to Me” (Stevie Wonder). Mr. Gokey’s “White Christmas” is sultry, and he wields real power on “Mary, Did You Know?” (Though he flattens out the hymn “Give Me Jesus.”) Mr. Gokey is an astute enough singer that his originals — especially the cheerful, goofy “Christmas Is Here” — sound like unearthed chestnuts. JON CARAMANICA

India.Arie and Joe Sample “Christmas With Friends,” Motown, $9.99

India.Arie’s Christmas collection is as creamy as homemade eggnog. Joe Sample, the urbanely supportive keyboardist from the Crusaders, places India.Arie’s husky alto in plush, jazz-tinged productions that let her luxuriate in the slow ones and swing easily when tempos pick up. The most adventurous arrangement is a modal-jazz transformation of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” in which she’s joined by Khristian Dentley from Take 6 as both solo singer and one-man vocal group. She has other duet partners — Brandy in a serene “Silent Night,” Tori Kelly in a perky “Favorite Time of Year,” Michael McDonald in a rambunctious “Merry Christmas Baby” — but the steady glow comes from India.Arie herself. JON PARELES

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis “Big Band Holidays,” Blue Engine/Red, $14.98

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s holiday concert has become a seasonal staple in New York, a festive showcase for the organization’s house orchestra and a notable guest singer or two. Among the highlights of this charming live compilation, culled from the last several years: Gregory Porter belting “Merry Christmas Baby,” against a bluesy wail of horns; Cécile McLorin Salvant purring through “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” with bittersweet resolve; René Marie’s puckish, slinky “’Zat You, Santa Claus?”; and Ted Nash’s arrangement of “We Three Kings,” which begins in a terse West African vein and amasses a crashing, cathartic force. NATE CHINEN

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India.Arie, above, and Joe Sample released “Christmas With Friends.”Credit...Stacie McChesney/NBC

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings “It’s a Holiday Soul Party,” Daptone, $10

Horns pump and backbeats kick up crisp 1960s and ’70s grooves while Sharon Jones belts her way through “It’s a Holiday Soul Party,” swooping and rasping all the way. “Funky Little Drummer Boy” gets a James Brown-style makeover, of course, but there are more surprising revamps: a slow-rolling, bluesy “Silent Night” and a “Silver Bells” that dips into New Orleans R&B. The Dap-Kings’ own 2009 song, “Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects,” reappears on this album. And just to be ecumenical, Ms. Jones sings about dreidels and latkes in “8 Days (of Hanukkah).” JON PARELES

MercyMe “MercyMe, It’s Christmas!,” MercyMe/Fair Trade, $10

Surface gleam counts for a lot in the music of MercyMe, a contemporary Christian rock band with a knack for earnest bombast. Arriving a decade after “The Christmas Sessions,” its first successful album in this vein, “MercyMe, It’s Christmas!” puts a sleek spin on a handful of carols, including “Joy to the World,” recast as “Joy.” The album also introduces a few originals that range from the retro sock-hop “Christmastime Again” to the countrified lilt of “Our Lullaby.” NATE CHINEN

Kylie Minogue “Christmas,” Parlophone, $11.99

Kylie Minogue goes era-hopping on “Christmas” — a collection of mostly retro, thoroughly secular takes on a holiday season that, in these songs, revolves around cozy companionship on cold nights. Ms. Minogue largely revisits the 1950s of studio orchestras and big bands, of Connie Francis and Frank Sinatra (whose voice shows up for a ghost duet in “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”). She has a pair of Phil Spector-tinged songs that she helped write, “White December” and “Christmas Isn’t Christmas ’Til You Get Here.” For a more contemporary touch, there’s “Every Day’s Like Christmas,” recognizably written by Chris Martin of Coldplay; there are chimes in the chorus, of course. Throughout the album, Ms. Minogue sings with what sounds like an irrepressible smile. JON PARELES

‘My Little Pony: It’s a Pony Kind of Christmas’ Legacy, $9.99

The album’s title song says it clearly: “All around the world of Equestria, Christmas is here to stay.” And for adepts of the universe in the animated television series “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,” that song is bonanza time — for here you have six of the main characters harmonizing with eardrum-slicing trebly cuteness: Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. (They’re individually featured on other tracks — a power-pop “Jingle Bells,” a ukulele-and-xylophone “Twelve Days of Christmas,” a big-band “Jolly Ol’ St. Nick,” etc.) Daniel Ingram, the show’s composer, has taken to Facebook to note that the album is not “canon,” meaning not integral to the fictional MLP universe, because “ponies in Equestria still celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve, not Christmas.” So this album is only for parents and young children with a casual interest. Or for total completist fanatics. BEN RATLIFF

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Jessica Davies, left, and Katherine Blamire of the band Smoke Fairies, whose new album is “Wild Winter.”Credit...Malchick Voshart

RuPaul “Slay Belles,” RuCo, $9.49

“Come and taste my Christmas cookies from my lovin’ oven,” RuPaul invites. There’s no snideness here, no snickering or half-gestures. He seems to mean it. His first Christmas album, “Ho, Ho, Ho,” 18 years ago, was more oriented toward enshrined holiday repertory; this one tends toward upbeat jokey originals. Hip-hop, disco, doo-wop, ’80s pop: RuPaul celebrates them interchangeably, singing with guests like the New Orleans rapper Big Freedia and Todrick Hall (an “American Idol” Season 9 semifinalist, if you remember), and cracking up with members of the Pit Crew from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” BEN RATLIFF

The Brian Setzer Orchestra “Rockin’ Rudolph,” Surfdog, $13

This is the rockabilly and swing guitarist Brian Setzer’s third Christmas album, in which he gets to scoop up the songs he hasn’t hit before. Some big ones remain on that list — “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” — and he’s also arranged a Christmased-up version of the theme song from the “Flinstones.” There are some good jazz musicians in the band playing slick, self-satisfied charts, and Mr. Setzer takes his role as crooner seriously. But you’ll find yourself waiting around for the rockabilly songs and the guitar solos, because that’s where the album’s personality — and its most rough-textured, asymmetrical moments — tend to live. BEN RATLIFF

Smoke Fairies “Wild Winter”; Full Time Hobby; 10 pounds (about $15.25)

Christmas and winter turn out to be ideal subjects for new songs by Smoke Fairies: the songwriters, guitarists and singers Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies and their band. It’s a season of personal responses to age-old traditions — something akin to Smoke Fairies’ music, which draws on the modal tunes of British folk traditions as refracted through 1960s psychedelia. With electric guitars that shimmer and drone, the two women sing in close harmony about concerns both mundane and mystical. Some songs address Christmastime directly, others with oblique charm. “Three Kings” reveals its Christmas connection via its title, which easily explains why Smoke Fairies are singing, “I’ve got predictions from constellations/ Light in the cosmos will bring revelations.” JON PARELES

Sons of Serendip “Christmas: Beyond the Lights,” NIA, $10.89

This classical-unto-R&B-unto-easy-listening band — made up of former Boston University schoolmates who auditioned together for “America’s Got Talent” in 2014 and went on to have a recording career — seems particularly built for Christmas albums: voice, cello, piano, guitar, and, most crucially, harp. “Christmas: Beyond the Lights,” with the Sons of Serendip’s arrangements of traditional songs — “O Holy Night,” “Let It Snow” and others — is alive with detail but silky beyond reason. It will make you spend money that you don’t have. BEN RATLIFF

Chris Tomlin “Adore: Christmas Songs of Worship,” sixstepsrecords/Sparrow, $6.99

“Adore,” the second Christmas album by the contemporary Christian artist Chris Tomlin, operates on the wavelength of a worship service, with a book of sleekly refurbished carols meant for congregational singalong. Recorded live in a leading Nashville studio that happens to inhabit a century-old Gothic Revival church, the album burns with earnest intention, even when — as on “Midnight Clear (Love Song)” and “Hymn of Joy” — a new arrangement puts an unnecessary gloss on a beloved hymn. Mr. Tomlin has a clear, agreeable voice, along with a mild playful streak: “It’s Christmas” is a Brian Setzer-esque shuffle that slips in quotations of “Away in a Manger” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” But the heart of the album is quaveringly sincere, perhaps best captured by a version of “What Child Is This?” featuring All Sons & Daughters, which evokes the grave austerity of a secular indie-folk band like the Civil Wars. NATE CHINEN

Rhonda Vincent “Christmas Time,” Upper Management, $11.98

One way to enliven an old standard is to invite unexpected guests to the party: That’s what the acclaimed bluegrass singer Rhonda Vincent does on “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Each day is handled by a different country luminary: Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, the Oak Ridge Boys and others. It’s a clever trick, one that adds texture to this collection of laser-smooth traditionals. But there is one more guest on this album, operating in a less official and perhaps less festive fashion: Martha White, the baking products company, which Ms. Vincent, its longtime spokeswoman, name-checks on “Dreaming of Christmas” and “Milk & Cookies.” It’s not quite coal in your stocking, but flour in the eggnog still tastes funny. JON CARAMANICA

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Making Merry With Music. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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