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Get ready to cha-cha-cha! Jon Secada's brightly-colored A Christmas Fiesta (also available in the Spanish language version Una Fiesta Navidena) is a Latin-flavored holiday cruise. As you travel from Cuba to Colombia, the tone is endlessly upbeat, and the rhythms are unmistakably authentic.

Secada infuses each of the 11 Christmas standards with true Latin grooves, employing reggae, Cuban salsa, and merengue beats. This playful pop is fully infused with warm Latin accents, and the result will have you dancing in your chair (and perhaps across the room). Using many of the musicians from his days in the Miami Sound Machine, Secada effortlessly croons his way around these secular chestnuts. From the opening Jingle Bells to the closing Feliz Navidad, A Christmas Fiesta will put a smile on your face and a bounce in your step.

Feeling a little blue? Throw Jon Secada's A Christmas Fiesta onto your sound system, and get happy for the holidays! It's infectiously fun!

--Carol Swanson
(Reviewed in 2007)

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From the Website:

The voice is unmistakable. That velvety croon, with tinges of R&B and jazz that can swiftly go from humor--one can almost hear the smile--to unabashed, suave romance.

Jon Secada has sold over 20 million CDs with this voice, but he's never attempted something like this: A Christmas album of traditional songs set to Latin beats and decidedly non-traditional arrangements.

The resulting A Christmas Fiesta and Una Fiesta Navideña, the Spanish-language version, is unexpected and relentlessly joyful, providing a much-needed lift to oft-visited Christmas standards, and also revealing a glimpse of rarely visited material.

From "Sleigh Bells" to "Jingle Bells" to "Silver Bells," you will recognize most of the repertoire here, but you won't recognize the arrangements, a veritable journey through Latin America's rich musical tradition. Set to salsa, bachata, cumbia, cha-cha and merengue, A Christmas Fiesta is a celebration where tradition and taste marry the most infectious beats in the world.

"I wanted it to be a tapestry of rhythms for the holidays," says Secada. "All those songs I love, because I grew up listening to them. I wanted to bring them to our culture."

Secada had visited Christmas fare before, in his 2001 classic recording The Gift. But the notion of a Christmas album infused in Latin spirit was born in 2005, when he recorded a version of the José Feliciano classic "Feliz Navidad" that was enthusiastically received by radio stations.

"It was more Latin than Feliciano's original," says Secada with a laugh. "From that point on, the idea stuck with me, and we started collecting Christmas songs that could harbor Latin rhythms. Most of them are up tempo, fun songs. They're songs that make people want to have a Christmas Fiesta."

Secada joined with friend and longtime collaborator and arranger Randy Barlow and visited over 30 Christmas songs. One by one, they played with arrangements, rhythms and instrumentation, "making sure it would fit melodically and that in singing it, it would sound natural," says Secada. Most were discarded along the way.

It wasn't simply about slapping congas to Christmas carols, stresses Secada. "For me the main thing was the musical integrity. Making sure that we were not cheating the style and we weren't cheating the song."

***

A Christmas Fiesta features Barlow's arrangements, Secada's vocals and a supporting cast of some of the top Latin session musicians in the world, including guitarist Dan Warner, bassist Ricardo Suarez, drummer Olbin Burgos, trumpet player Hernan "Teddy" Mulet, saxophonist Michael Scaglione, and percussionist Richard Bravo, many of whom were Jon's team members from his days in Miami Sound Machine.

The CD kicks off with a piano tumbao that quickly welcomes percussion and upbeat trumpets to a salsa beat, a rhythm and cadence impossible to mentally place on a Christmas carol. When Secada's voice comes in to sing "Jingle Bells," one can't help but smile in delight at how unexpected, and yet how perfect it is.

"We did it so you could hear all this music upfront and not know what was happening," admits Secada. "We didn't know it would work until we experimented with the rhythm and the beat."

That sense of discovery is repeated throughout the album.

"Let It Snow" begins with touches of reggae then dissolves into a Colombian cumbia. "Sleigh Bells" has the drive of a Cuban salsa, featuring some of the lesser known lyrics associated with this beloved standard while "Jingle Bell Rock" takes on the beat of an irresistible cha-cha-cha. Most of the tracks are upbeat, save for "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which becomes a gentle bachata, and "Silver Bells," which trades in its two by four standard beat for the lilting one-two-three of a Peruvian waltz.

Jon Secada

A Christmas Fiesta

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Track List