Bob Piorun Picks on Christmas Carols leads with a jazz arrangement of Away In A Manger, and of course my first impulse is to say to myself "here we go again..." because I was born in '55 and that ship (the one that birthed America's last male jazz fan) had sailed. But it was an extremely cool arrangement, as jazz arrangements go, and he followed it with an unusual Hawaiian slack key arrangement of Silent Night. This was followed by a new age rendition of We Three Kings, and I'm thinking either this guy is just trying to mock me, or he really knows what he's doing. Next comes a Chicago-style Ave Maria (with flute, and everything!), and I know that I can deal with Bob.

Of course, he hits me up 'side the head later on with more jazz, and (yikes!) even with some pure classical guitar, but by now Bob and I are old friends. Pioron's retro-eclectric guitar stylings are warm and inviting, whether he's mocking low-brow listeners or the genres themselves. I particularly enjoyed his lush, laid-back new age Hawaiian style arrangements, such as O Holy Night, which turned out to be my favorite, and which will remain on the iPod after most other traces of Christmas 2007 have been wiped clean.

Bob Piorun Picks On Christmas is a CD with wide appeal, from jazz-baiting rednecks like myself, to urban, middle-aged cool cats, to latte-sipping new age women. I hate almost everything this year, but I loved this.