Album: Lea DeLaria, Be a Santa (WEA)

You'd be forgiven for expecting a Christmas album by the very smart and knowing singer, actress and comedienne DeLaria to be as camp as, well, Christmas.

But this is a genuine, straight-ish celebration of all our favourite jazzy seasonal songs. There's wit, verve, va-va-voom, spunk, plus any more finger-snapping adjectives you can think of, and seeing this done live would be a hoot. Yet it's hard to banish a Scrooge-ish feeling that after Ella, Frank and the rest, there wasn't much point in doing it again.