Review: “Christmas Fantasy” by Anita Baker (CD, 2005)

Today’s Pop Rescue from an unknown festive future, is 2005’s Christmas Fantasy – the seventh album by American R&B singer Anita Baker. Will this album be all you’ve wished for, or is all just make-believe? Read on…

Anita Baker - Christmas Fantasy (2005) album — Anita Baker – Christmas Fantasy (2005) album

This 9 track CD opens with a wonderfully jazzy intro for Frosty’s Rag (Frosty The Snowman) and this gives us some wonderful vocals from Anita Baker as she’s flanked by a wonderful clarinet. The brushed snare, piano, and bass sound great here alongside her with a sort of stripped back jazz sound with plenty of vintage Christmas feelings. We’re off to a nice and cosy start here.

Christmas Time Is Here is next and this gives us a nice slow song with piano and an almost mumbling guitar in the background as Anita’s vocals are rich, warm, and breathless. The piano gets a wonderful solo mid way through.

Then it’s I’ll Be Home For Christmas, and here the pace picks up nicely, allowing Anita to show off a more cheerful and upbeat sound. She sound like she’s doing so with great ease as her vocals take every chance to shine. The shuffling beat behind her works well, with the guitar and piano getting plenty of time to shine too without taking the song away from its familiarity too much, but it’s no Bing Crosby version.

Next is the titular and original track, Christmas Fantasy. It starts off with what feels like a dream sequence before landing into a nice steady piano-backed rhythm. Anita takes the microphone and sings of a man for whom she’ll do anything – but ‘set him beneath my tree‘. It’s a heartfelt love song to… Santa, I think. It’s a nice gentle mellow song.

That’s followed by the traditional God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, but Anita makes this into a beautifully jazzy and foot-tapping song of her own. She sounds great here, although occasionally her vocals seem to wander off on an unexpected key – which is probably just me not respecting the jazz style enough. Once again, the pianist gets a load of the limelight here.

Moonlight Sleighride follows that, and this is another of the three original tracks here. The first 45 seconds give us a nice jazz sound board before picking up the vocals with Anita. Whilst they feel quite minimal against the track, they are still quite nice with some wonderful harmonies.

Then it’s time from another traditional dose of Christmas in the guise of O Come, All Ye Faithful. This returns us to Anita singing a fuller set of lyrics, and this time she’s joined by The Yellowjackets. Whilst most of the vocals here are nice enough, there is a few big notes but she doesn’t reach for them, and that means I feel a little cheated out of those. As the track heads towards the end, she seems to lose all sense of the song.

Next it’s the final original track, Family Of Man. We’re back in guitar, piano, and more up-beat sounding songs again. Anita sounds somewhat in her element here, backed with some great backing vocals too, the track is a welcome tuneful, fairly catchy song.

The album closes with the old Rodgers and Hammerstein song My Favourite Things which whilst not a Christmas song, works a treat. The acoustic bass sounds wonderful as this jazzy version erupts. Anita’s vocals sound magnificent here as the piano almost dances along with her. The track is a load of fun and Anita sounds like she’s having a whale of a time making it. A perfect album closer.

A 2006 live performance of album opener ‘Frosty’s Rag’.

Verdict

Over all, this album is a bit of a jumble. It’s loaded with jazz music and jazz vocals and at times this gets a bit meandering and dull.

If you’re here because of Anita’s 1980’s ballad hits, then you’re probably going to find this album a bit of a trudge. There are some wonderful moments though, and Anita’s vocals in these good songs works well – with I’ll Be Home For Christmas, Family Of Man, and My Favourite Things leading the way here. Where it goes wrong though is in the meandering jazz vocals that perhaps I’m unfamiliar with. O Come, All Ye Faithful – a song i’ve heard countless times, is completely feral in its delivery and I struggled to continue listening to it as it seemed to take Anita further away from the melody with each minute.

There’s some nice tracks here, but you’re going to want to know how to skip a few tracks.