Music: Sounds of Christmas

Each year Christmas on disks grows louder and bigger. This season the record companies are all but burying the tree with a blizzard of releases, ranging from a collection of Renaissance motets (on Epic’s The Birth of Christ, with The Netherlands Chamber Choir) to Children goWhere I Send You (ColPix) in which Songstress Nina Simone belts out the story of the “little-bitty baby was born in Bethlehem.” In between are gaudy packages by the industry’s perennial carolers : Arthur Fiedler, Fred Waring, Mitch Miller, George Melachrino. Among the more notable Christmas tinsel:

Lanza Sings Christmas Carols (RCA Victor Stereo). Tenor Lanza, who recorded this album in Italy not long before his death this fall, sings his carols straight, and they have rarely sounded better: Away in a Manger, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Silent Night.

The Spirit of Christmas (Ken Darby Orchestra and Chorus; Decca LP). A spectral-voiced Spirit, serving as a kind of narrator, is reminiscent of a pretentious Inner Sanctum mystery, but Bandleader Darby’s taffy-thick dance arrangements will probably be dandy as Music to Hold an Office Party By.

The Happiest Christmas Tree (Nat King Cole; Capitol). Singer Cole, it appears, is “the happiest Christmas tree! Ho, ho, ho, hee, hee, hee, hee.” That laugh alone could kick him to the top of the pop charts.

A Christmas Sound Spectacular (John Klein, carillonneur; RCA Victor Stereo). It is easy to quibble with the style of this Christmas celebration, but hard to find fault with the sound. There are too many wailing choristers and glutinous strings in the standard selections (White Christmas, Jingle Bells), but the 1,453 bells of the Carillon Americana brazen it out with a clarity and resonance sure to pin any true stereo bug to his set.

Little Drummer Boy (Johnny Cash; Columbia). One of the hitherto unreported visitors to the manger, it seems, was Country Singer Cash, bearing a tom-tom. In his sowbelly accent he recalls what happened: “The ox and lamb kept time/ I played my drum for Him/ I played my best for Him/ Then He smiled at me.. .”

The Happy Reindeer (Capitol). Another of the tape-doctored disks, this one featuring the nasalized singing of “Dancer, Prancer and Nervous” in a message of blue-eyed innocence: “We are Santa’s reindeers/ We’ve learned to sing this year/ So we can tell everyone/ Christmas day is near.”

Christmas Carols (The Deutschmeister Band, conducted by Julius Herrmann; Westminster Stereo). Stately performances by Austria’s venerable military brass band of some familiar carols and some less familiar—In Dulci Jubilo, From o’er the Hills of Fair Judea—all of them emerging in richly burnished sound.

They Shined Up Rudolph’s Nose (Johnny Horton; Columbia). Singer Horton tries to shine up a hit of Christmas past with sheer lung power. Rudolph’s nose, he assures the listeners, “is shining bright/ It looks just like a star.” Horton himself has rarely looked less like one.

Christmas Dance Party (Lester Lanin and his Orchestra; Epic Stereo). Familiar Christmas holly wrapped in Bandleader Lanin’s steady society beat.

Christmas in Scandinavia (Axel Stordahl and his Orchestra and Chorus; Decca LP). An engaging collection of carols from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The album comes without translations, but it manages to make considerably fresher comments on the season than most of the competition.

Christmas Carols (The Randolph Singers, conducted by David Randolph; Westminster Stereo). The serious collector of carols could scarcely do better than this album. The Randolph group sings with sensitivity and precision, and the selections are ones that the listener is not likely to stumble across in a month of Christmases: Patapan; Saint Staffan; Quid Petis, O Fili; Bring a Torch, Jeanette.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Warner Bros. Stereo). An unlikely collection of 15 “Christmas favorites” by TV gumshoes, including Efrem (77 Sunset Strip) Zimbalist Jr. (Adeste Fideles), and cowpokes. notably Clint (Cheyenne) Walker (Silver Bells) and Ty (Bronco) Hardin (“It came upon ah mid-naht cleah”). Edd (“Kookie”) Byrnes recites, to a cool jazz beat, a ditty called Yulesville: “‘Twas the night before Christmas/ And all through the pad/ Not a hipcat was swingin’/ And that’s nowhere, Dad.”