The Mad Hat Hucksters have always been a band that treats swing as a living vernacular rather than a museum dialect, which is why holiday releases fit them so well. Anyone who has followed their evolution through 2017’s Swing and Jazz Music for Dancing, the sturdy live set Live at the Firehouse, the Halloween project Night of the Lindy Dead, and their latest studio album What’s the Matter with the Mill? already knows the formula: tight ensemble rhythm, strong tempos tailored for actual dancers, and a sense of communal lift that never drifts into showing off. They’ve built their reputation by making rooms move, and this holiday EP carries that same ethos into December.
The title song, “Holly Jolly Christmas,” leads the album with a banjo-like guitar strum that immediately sets the mood. Even though the performance was recorded at a Christmas party, there’s no crowd noise, just that trademark Hucksters “live feel” that even follows them into the studio. the sense that each version will exist only once and the next will swing slightly differently. The jazz spirit lives in those little variations, and this track makes it clear from the jump. From there the EP slips into “The Christmas Blues,” a song most people know from Dean Martin’s 1953 release but one that’s had more lives than you might expect, right up through Bob Dylan in 2009. The Hucksters’ take is mo
