The band Blackmore's Night puts its own medieval spin on holiday classics

December 24, 1999
Web posted at: 12:51 p.m. EST (1751 GMT)

(CNN) -- Klezmer music is more usually associated with "Happy Hannukah" than "Merry Christmas." But the Klezmonauts have produced a musical crossover album to beat all others, with "Oy to the World," in which Jewish tradition meets Christmas carol.

Their independently released album is just one of a number of non-traditional holiday releases available this year. The band Blackmore's Night, for example, draws from medieval times with Christmas carols played on medieval instruments.

In celebration of the non-religious holiday Kwanzaa, the band Women of the Calabash have re-released "The Kwanzaa Album" this year on the Orchard label.

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The national instrument of Zimbabwe -- the mbira, or thumb piano -- is among several traditional instruments featured in the album, says the trio's Madeleine Yayodele Nelson. She calls the mbira "a spiritual instrument for the Shona people" of Zimbabwe, formerly colonial Rhodesia.

On the other side of the holiday theme, there were no Christmas carols but plenty of Christmas charity in evidence at the annual Jingle Ball '99, held recently in New York. Robbie Williams, Jennifer Lopez, Lenny Kravitz and Enrique Iglesias were among the show's performers. Proceeds went to various children's charities for the purchase of holiday gifts.