“COOL YULE” – 14 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

The Louis Armstrong recording of this song might be one of the four or five holiday works that I’ll stop what I’m doing and listen – even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times.

The song itself is pretty good. It was written by Steve Allen, the first-ever host of “The Tonight Show.” While better known as a comedian, Allen claims to have written 8,500 songs, few of them recorded. The most famous is “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” an early ’60s crooner standard.

What makes this recording is Armstrong. The arrangement, with his band, The Commanders. Armstrong’s vocals invoke the joy of the song and his trumpet solo brings it to an emotional peak.

“Cool Yule” has been covered several times and the versions aren’t bad. But this one is definitive. It would be wrong not to link to Corona’s own.