Jim Caruso, Billy Stritch & Klea Blackhurst Bring Their Swinging Christmas Tradition to the Boston Area

EDGE: You've been doing this show annually since 2010 at Birdland and various venues. How has the show evolved over the years?

Jim Caruso: This show is like the holiday party you wish you'd been invited to. We can't wait. We've been doing it for 15 years, which is 200 years in cabaret. It's my favorite time of year. I grew up watching these Christmas specials in the '70s with Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing together. This is the Christmas Family Holiday Special I never got to have. The three of us are Christmas nerds. We wear plaid and drink egg nog, the ultimate holiday throuple of holiday spirit.

The show certainly has evolved. We have some of our favorite tunes, and some that are on our album, "Christmas at Birdland," but each year we add a new thing and take away an old thing. This year, Klea and I performed in the Sondheim "Follies" at Carnegie Hall and Billy and I performed in the New York Pops tribute to Barry Manilow. So, we are including Sondheim and Manilow.

EDGE: You two have been working together for a long time. How did Klea enter the mix?

Jim Caruso: Good karma! Billy and I have been working together for decades, and friends for over 40 years, which sounds horrifying. Between the nightclubs, the Liza tours, we've amassed a million miles on the road together. Klea came into our lives 20 years ago and being a constant on the cabaret scene we got to know her. She is as much a holiday nerd as we are. She grew up in Salt Lake City, and she grew up on the Donny and Marie Christmas specials. She wanted to marry Donny Osmond. She has the wit of Dorothy Parker and the voice of Ethel Merman. It will knock your socks off. Her knowledge of music is extraordinary. She's a 'Mermaniac,' and obsessed with Merman's career, and has performed a lot of her roles on stage and in cabarets. She's the most relatable diva I know. She's so funny on stage and off. She's a great hang and that's the best you can say about anybody.

Billy Stritch: I first met Klea when she came on the scene as a cabaret artist 20 years ago. Pretty soon after we met, we started working together on a show of Hoagy Carmichael's music and we made an album of it. Not long after that, Jim and I started the Christmas Show, and Klea was added a year after that. She has the perfect joyful sound for holiday music. We try to really convey the spirit of Christmas, plus the lightness and humor. And that's what Klea has. She's one of my favorite people to begin with.

EDGE: The three of you are like a modern-day Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour from the "Road to..." films of the 1940s.

Jim Caruso: Klea would love hearing she's Dorothy Lamour.

Billy Stritch: Jim and I have that "Bing and Bob" kind of vibe, especially when we do our duets, "The Christmas Blues," and "Little Jack Frost Get Lost," which we recorded on the album 3 years ago. Sure, Klea's the gal, but she's also one of the guys. I love her strength. She's no blushing flower. She can sing with emotion, but her main thing is brassy. We're like a rat pack trio.

EDGE: You cover a lot of familiar Christmas standards, but in unfamiliar arrangements. What made you want to approach Christmas in a swing style?

Jim Caruso: Well, our home is Birdland, a jazz club. Billy is a swinging jazzy pianist. It just seemed appropriate that we just sing out, sister. Those are the arrangements Billy and I gravitate to, so there was no question this show would swing.

Billy Stritch: We didn't want to make the show serious, or easy listening. So many of the songs we do have been sung by great jazz singers. I also love movie songs, so we do this medley "It Happened in Sun Valley," and "Snow," from "White Christmas." I'm an old movie buff.

EDGE: I understand there's a little parlor game to identify the number of times "jingle Bells" shows up in the show. Will that still be a thing?

Billy Stritch: It probably will. We've always done a medley of different versions of "Jingle Bells," and we kind of mash them up. Our friend Aaron Weinstein did that for us. Other songs have a little quote of "Jingle Bells," and I playfully insert it into the middle of a song from time to time. I lose count. It is the ultimate Christmas quote.

Jim Caruso: I don't' know if we'll do the medley this year. But we always include Kay Thomson's version of "Jingle Bells." She was Liza's godmother and wrote "Eloise at the Plaza." We met many decades ago and were friends and she was a mentor to me, so a Christmas show without her version wouldn't be right and we hope she'll be looking down and smiling.

EDGE: Will Klea be bringing her piccolo trumpet along?

Jim Caruso: Just try and stop her! We'll see the baby trumpet. Last year we both played the ukulele: her well, me to varying success. We want to keep that eccentric vibe. On the old Christmas specials, like Donny and Marie, they had their ice skaters, on others, stars sang with Muppets. The strangest thing would happen. We want to keep that anything can happen vibe, so something tells me a pocket trumpet will come out...

Billy Stritch: ...whether we want it to or not! (laughs)

EDGE: What's the most unusual part of the show?

Billy Stritch: There is no limit to the number of cheesy Christmas songs that have been written over the years, and we do some of them as a goof. The point is to be upbeat.

EDGE: What is your favorite Christmas memory?

Billy Stritch: Back when I was a little boy. Christmas couldn't come fast enough. The feeling of not being able to sleep the night before, and then walking downstairs. The Christmas I got my first bicycle and my first go cart. One Christmas we got a trampoline, and my siblings and I became the most popular kids on the block. Christmas is best viewed through the eyes of kids. I love it when people bring their children and when families come to the show. Many people come every year and make it part of their Christmas tradition. That's why we do it: to give joy to people and see people we only see once a year. I'm loving we are coming up to Quincy, so we will get a whole new group of people who haven't seen the show before. That's very special.

Jim Caruso: I certainly have great memories of my family growing up in Pittsburgh and snow and presents and wrapping and decorating.

But, certainly, doing this show every year is a favorite memory.

I'm going to name drop now: I was in "Liza At The Palace" on Broadway and Billy was at the piano. The show ran for six weeks over the holidays. Walking to the theater on Christmas Day to do a matinee and evening show, and it was snowing, and I was on Broadway in NYC walking to the theater. In my world it doesn't get better than that. And of course, Liza closed the show sitting with Billy at the piano singing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas," while the rest of us were weeping in the wings. Hmm...that makes me think we should do this in the show now. The fact that we have a Kay Thompson moment says maybe we'll tie this in and do a Liza bit, too.

JM Productions will present Jim Caruso, Billy Stritch, and Klea Blackhurst in "A Swinging Christmas" on December 7, 2024, 8 PM at Church of the Presidents (United First Parish Church), 1306 Hancock Street, Quincy, MA. Tickets: $45-$45. For Reservations, visit: https://brushfire.com/jmproductions/concerts/581382