NEW RELEASE: Flying High for the Holidays, A Holiday Album for All Seasons
Jazz Label Songbook Ink Closes Out America 250 with Flying High for the Holidays, a Holiday Album for All Seasons, Featuring 13 Seasonal Songs Made In America, Memorialized by Legendary Women of Jazz Past and Present
Jazz Label Songbook Ink Closes Out America 250 with Flying High for the Holidays, a Holiday Album for All Seasons, Featuring 13 Seasonal Songs Made In America, Memorialized by Legendary Women of Jazz Past and Present
For the First Holiday Album in the Label's Innovative, Women-Centric Flying High Series, Musical Director Champian Fulton Calls In Her Dream Team of Vocalists including Nicole Zuraitis, Carmen Bradford, and Bria Skonberg.
Stream the Single Silver Bells Featuring 2X Grammy Winner Nicole Zuraitis
Available on CD, Vinyl and on Digital Platforms November 6, 2026 via Songbook Ink
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Songbook Ink, the jazz label that celebrates the Great American Songbook with critically-acclaimed audiophile compilation recordings featuring the best contemporary voices on the scene today, closes out America 250 with Flying High for the Holidays, a 13-track compilation album honoring the remarkable songwriters and pioneering women whose recordings helped define the sound and traditions of the holidays. A limited edition run of vinyl, signed by triple-threat pianist, vocalist and musical director, Champian Fulton, will be available to commemorate America's big birthday year.
Flying High for the Holidays is the first holiday album in Songbook Ink's indispensable Flying High series of albums, the brainchild of producer Suzanne Waldowski and Music Director Champian Fulton that celebrates the vocalists, or "canaries," who sang with the iconic big bands and were an important and enduring part of the legacy of American song.
Inspired by Jackie Gleason’s seminal 1956 Capitol album Merry Christmas, Fulton wanted to put something together that gave off similar warm vibes, bypassing an orchestral setting for her own relentlessly swinging two-fisted piano stylings, the always tasteful reed work of Klas Lindquist,
and two unbeatable rhythm sections, one with Fulton’s “home team” of bassist Neal Miner and drummer Fukushi Tainaka, while others spotlight the work of drummer Charles Ruggiero and legendary bassist Buster Williams.
For her moments in the spotlight, Fulton chose three off-the-beaten-path selections: “Dreamer’s Holiday,” written in 1949 for Perry Como by two female songwriters, Mabel Wayne and Kim Gannon, “December,” an unjustly obscure composition by trumpeter Billy Butterfield and the great vocalist Kay Starr, duo setting with frequent partner-in-time Lindquist; and “Christmas Love Song,” a collaboration between heavyweights Alan and Marilyn Bergman and Johnny Mandel that Rosemary Clooney recorded, but one that hasn’t achieved standard status yet, something that might change after folks hear what Fulton does with it.
Fulton spearheaded this project and proffers generous and excellent accompaniment to the rest of the album’s all-star cast of singers, a mix of new and returning modern “canaries” to the Flying High scene. Representing one of the new faces, Emily Braden is featured on “Winter Wonderland,” and captivates on her contemporary rendition of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s only holiday song, “Happy Christmas, Little Friend.”
The other new voice is New York City favorite Molly Ryan, who exudes warmth while swinging out on Bob Russell’s “Warm in December,” first recorded by Julie London in 1956, and the beautiful “In the Gloaming, By the Fireside,” a big hit in Great Britain in the 1930s that was later resurrected in 1956 by proud canary Jo Stafford.
Returning to the Flying High family, Nicole Zuraitis lends her multiple GRAMMY-winning pipes to two staples, “Silver Bells,” and Irving Berlin’s “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,”
Australian-born Olivia Chindamo also returns “Love Turns Winter to Spring,” memorably recorded by June Christy in 1957, before swinging the daylights out of “Little Jack Frost Get Lost."
Carmen Bradford, a tenured member of the Count Basie Orchestra, makes a celebratory appearance on “(Everybody’s Waitin’ for) The Man with the Bag,” a hip ode to Santa that was the property of Kay Starr, but is now owned by Bradford.
Reed player, Lindquist steps into the spotlight on an instrumental rendition of Frank Loesser’s evergreen, “What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" later recorded by Nancy Wilson (longtime boss of bassist Buster Williams). It should be pointed out that Loesser didn’t envision this as a holiday tune, with his daughter Susan once stating, “It always annoyed my father when the song was sung during the holidays."
While many holiday albums, even in the jazz realm, sound comforting between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Waldowksi and Fulton curated the choice of songs and arrangements for Flying High for the Holidays to intentionally sidestep the cliché of sleigh bells and overdone songs that send the album to the back of the shelf (or deleted from the playlist) come January 1.
"For 250 years, America has fostered a spirit of creating, inventing, and imagining," says Waldowski, who released Accentuate the Positive, a collection of upbeat songs from the great American Songbook that bouyed Americans' spirits through hard times, including WW2 and the Great Depression. "Few of our cultural contributions have traveled farther and endured longer than this music. Flying High for the Holidays celebrates that distinctly American legacy and honors the extraordinary women who put their indelible stamp on them, and these contemporary vocalist carrying the torch forward to create this soundtrack for the season. My hope is that when listening to Flying High for the Holidays, every day will feel like a holiday!”
Track Listing
1.A Dreamer's Holiday - featuring Champian Fulton
2.Winter Wonderland - featuring Emily Braden
3. Silver Bells - featuring Nicole Zuraitis
4. The Man with the Bag - featuring Carmen Bradford
5. Warm in December - featuring Molly Ryan
6. Love Turns Winter to Spring - featuring Olivia Chindamo
7.December - featuriing Champian Fulton
8. Happy Christmas, Little Friend - featuring Emily Braden
9. Little Jack Frost, Get Lost - featuring Olivia Chindamo
10. What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? - featuring Klas Lindquist
11. I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - featuring Nicole Zuraitis
12. By the Fireside - featuring Molly Ryan
13. Christmas Love Song - featuring Champian Fulton
About Songbook Ink
Songbook Ink is a boutique record label and jazz-inspired merchandise company dedicated to celebrating the timeless artistry of the Great American Songbook. Through retro-inspired giftware, designs, and themed compilation recordings featuring top-tier next-generation musicians, their products pair mid-century styling with exclusive music downloads from their critically acclaimed recordings.
About Jazz at the Ballroom
Jazz at the Ballroom (JATB) is a California-based 501(c)(3) committed to keeping swinging, classic jazz alive by sharing the American Songbook through innovative programming and one-of-a-kind performances. In addition to its concerts, JATB brings this beloved American art form into the community through workshops, public events, and performances in schools, hospitals, and senior living communities. Since 2016, JATB has presented more than 175 concerts nationwide and an equal number of outreach performances, inspiring new audiences and nurturing a love of jazz for generations to come.
Suzanne Waldowski (Executive Director, Record Producer, Founder of JATB and Songbook Ink)
A jazz aficionado who has been enamored with the Great American Sonbook since a child, Waldowski began presenting concerts on a grass roots level in the ballroom of her then-home in Hillsborough, CA, which was once owned by Bing Crosby. Having grown up in a household that revered the Great American Songbook, Waldowski was inspired to find new ways to share the music she loved with new audiences and started presenting in her living room in 2016. Inspired by legendary jazz impresario, Norman Granz, who produced the legendary Jazz at the Philharmonic tours and recording, she named her 501(c)(3) presenting organization Jazz at the Ballroom. "I wish I could say he [Granz] was my mentor, but he died before JATB came into being,” says Waldowski. "He's certainly been my motivation though. His goal was to introduce this music to new audiences, which I'm trying to do. Initially, I started with a salon series, then it grew into more shows, and now albums. All of this happened so serendipitously."
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November 05 | Bang & Olufson (album release performance and cocktail reception) | San Francisco, CA (Limited Seating) RSVP Required
November 7 | Hillsborough Racquet Club | Hillsborough, CA Tickets
November 11 | The Greer | Pittsburgh, PA
Tickets available early October
November 12 | Two River Theater | Red Bank, NJ Tickets
November 28 | Green Room | New York City, NY Tickets
December 6 | Jazz at Kleinhans | Buffalo, NY Tickets