Christmas Gumbo

The ultimate new Orleans holiday playlist.

- Brett Milano

New Orleans’ history of Christmas music actually begins fairly recently: For all the great records that came out of this city in the ’50s and ’60s, only a precious few of them were seasonal. Many local legends (Armstrong, Prima, Toussaint) only recorded one-off Christmas tracks, and at least one, Professor Longhair, never waxed any seasonal music at all. That all changed in the CD era, as local songwriters did their best to put some new spice into the Christmas repertoire.

This stab at an ultimate New Orleans holiday playlist list culls many of the greatest in chronological order. Consider this a seasonal addendum to our book, “300 Songs for 300 Years”—which, we hasten to add, makes an excellent Christmas gift.

“What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin’?)” (Louis Prima, 1936) A pressing question indeed, and in 1936 Louis Prima was the man to ask it. Having recently left New Orleans to launch his career on the West Coast, by now Prima likely knew plenty about parties that don’t wrap early enough to give the fat man a quiet hour to leave gifts; the band on this record was his original New Orleans Gang. Note that it also asks what Santa will do “when he hears them sing-sing-singing,” a reference to his hit from earlier that year.