Sylvia Bennett has a strong voice and a nice résumé of vocal credits, ranging from
Lionel Hampton's touring band to hotel nightclubs to convention entertainment. What she didn't have was the obligatory Christmas album for jazz singers. Somewhat unfortunately,
It's Christmas Time fulfills the Christmas album requirement but does so with extraordinarily stereotypical synthesizers and '80s power ballad riffs galore. The album opens with "Rainbow Christmas," a rough-hewn song for
Bennett with a children's chorus. Classics take their turns through, doused with sound effects and staid vocals. Poor standards like "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" are given a haphazard treatment as a bit of rock-electronica-dancehall-soft rock, in ways that seem created more as inside jokes than as honest musical offerings.
Bennett's vocals are better than this album will show, but the arrangements are the primary problem -- distracting beyond the point of amusement, and into the realm of distasteful. ~ Adam Greenberg