
2. What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
3. Winter Wonderland
4. Sleigh Ride
5. Christmas Time Is Here
6. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
7. A Modern Christmas Tale
8. The Man With The Bag
9. Be A Santa
10. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
11. White Christmas
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Her new album, Be A Santa, finds Lea DeLaria swinging her way through the Christmas songbook, backed by some of the best British jazz musicians around and produced by the acclaimed pianist and composer Janette Mason. "I've always wanted to make a Christmas Album," says the singer. "All the greats did it; Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé - I wanted to have mine out there too!" Joining Lea are some of the UK's top players saxophonist Julian Siegel, trumpeter Martin Shaw, bassists Simon Little and Geoff Gascoyne, vibes player Anthony Kerr, drummer Mark Fletcher and, of course, Lea's long time companion Janette on piano, who also co-wrote the album's one original track, A Modern Christmas Tale. "It's our Trojan Horse of a track," says Lea proudly. 'You listen to it and you think you've heard it before. You ask, 'Who wrote that one?' Well, we did. We just snuck it in."
Lea Delaria is a noted Jazz singer, actress and comedienne. Known by some for being (perhaps) the first openly gay comic ("coming out" on The Arsenio Hall Show), Delaria later turned to recording and performing Jazz standards, releasing "Play It Cool" in 2001. Since then, her 50s style Swing has been her primary focus, though she has continued her career as an actress as well. "Be A Santa" is Lea's first Christmas album.
As Lea said of her 2008 CD, "The Live Smoke Sessions", this collection of holiday classics (and one original) can best be introduced thusly: "It is my hope that this CD will take you back to 1948 and the Village Vanguard. So please let me invite you to mix a cocktail and enjoy a smoke while you sit back and soak up the swing."