Vintage Christmas David Ian

• 1Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (featuring Acacia)03:28
• 2Let is Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! featuring Andre Miguel Mayo03:14
• 3Santa Claus is Coming to Town03:04
• 4Christmas Waltz02:34
• 5Hark! The Herald Angels Sing02:21
• 6The Christmas Song, Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire featuring Acacia03:58
• 7Home for the Holidays02:38
• 8Christmas Time With You02:36
• 9I'll Be Home For Christmas03:02
• 10Silent Night03:55
• 11Christmas Time With You03:14
• Total Runtime34:04

Info for Vintage Christmas

Longtime Superchick guitarist Dave Ghazarian trades rock riffs for jazz piano on his first solo project. Releasing under the abbreviated name David Ian, David Ian Vintage Christmas provides a timeless soundtrack for the holiday season.

Having begun a lifelong love affair with jazz in his early teens, Ian drew inspiration for the project from those classic jazz and Christmas LPs of the 1950s. The result is a set of familiar Christmas classics with relaxed, swinging arrangements reminiscent of perennial favorites like A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Ian comments, “I tried to bring the arrangements within reach of the listener; I want them to feel like they’re sitting by the fire in their living room listening to these melodically driven, mid-century arrangements. Each instrument, tone and note on this recording was purposefully chosen in an attempt to take the listener to that time and place.”

A blend of instrumental and vocal versions, David Ian Vintage Christmas features a small jazz trio comprising Ian (piano, guitar), Jon Estes (upright bass), and Brian Fitch (drums) augmented by guest vocalists Acacia (of the sister duo Tal and Acacia) and Andre Miguel Mayo. Songs include Christmas staples “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Silent Night,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Let It Snow.” Ian also penned an original song for the record, “Christmas Time with You,” inspired by the long-distance relationship with the woman who became his wife in 2009.

“I believe the meaning of Christmas to be one of hope in someone greater than ourselves; in the birth of a Savior who ensures that the world need not bear its burdens alone,” he says. “My objective with this project is to help direct the listener to that sense of hope.” (Dave Ghazarian)

Dave Ghazarian (David Ian), Piano & Guitar
Jon Estes, Upright Bass
Brian Fitch, Drums
Acacia, Vocal (tracks 1, 5, 6 and 11)
Andre Miguel Mayo, Vocal (tracks 8 and 11)


C'mon, admit it, you know you're a sucker for a good holiday disc. I am too, anything from the ripping rock of Gary Ho-Ho-Hoey's discs to the strange coolness of the Ghostly Trio to the down home refrains of The Skaggs Family. When they're done right, these CDs bring on a righteous wave of nostalgia with twists on, or fidelities to, beloved refrains. Well, David Ian's Vintage Christmas is one of those you'll soon come to very much dig, immediately placing it, as I have, beside the classic Guaraldi Xmas gigs—with a bit of Moonlight Sonata and a touch of Satie—'cause the disc simultaneously swings while possessed of a beautiful frailty, especially when Acacia starts out the whole thing with a bird on the wire tremulous take on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I don't know who this chanteuse is, have never run across her before, but four tracks feature her vocals, and I could listen all day long and well into the night.

Ian fuses warmth and breeziness in piano ministrations amid a trio executing letter-perfect renditions of West Coast Cool versions of nine classics and one original, all and sundry swingin' while pensive. Though Ian's normally, now get this, an antic heavy metal guitarist in the band Superchick, nominated for a 2009 Grammy, he began his musical career at age 5, studying classical piano. His drop dead surety of touch and perspicuity in intonation vouch for that long apprenticeship, and, while I vVintage Christmas is pristine and hints of the superior virtues of a Chris Abrahams (The Necks). Of course, then there are the guy's Kessel / Ellis / Byrd / Green jazz guitar lines as well—restrained, tasty, to the point.

Andre Miguel Mayo also guests and captures the vocal presence of a New York City busker, a cat on the street side of studied. He pops up on two cuts and then duets with Acacia on a second version of Ian's Christmas Time with You to close the disc. References to Brubeck, Bill Evans, Nat King Cole, and Chet Baker are as inevitable as Guaraldi by the time the eleven cuts come to an end, and the clever Vanity Fair / Playboy Pad / New Yorker cover art by Jeremy Morgan is a picture perfect evocation of elder times revamped. Of the various holiday CDs I'm buying or seeing as submissions for review consideration, this is the clear prize winner, a release that will easily weather the years and decades to come as mood music of choice for the discerning palettes of cool cats, hipsters, beat sophisticates, young and old modernes, and even atheist hepzibahumbugs like myself.

Review by Mark S. Tucker / Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange

Dave Ghazarian
born in Toronto, Canada to Armenian immigrant parents, David Ian came early to music, beginning classical piano study at age five. Ian performed in a number of garage bands throughout junior high and high school, and after graduating from college became lead guitarist in the acclaimed band Church of Rhythm. That group eventually morphed into the even more successful rock act Superchick, which has sold nearly one million albums and earned a 2009 Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock/Rap Gospel Album.

Booklet for Vintage Christmas