BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Lehigh Valley-based jazz chanteuse Corrine Mammana says she's always loved doing Christmas shows.
Mammana has performed holiday concerts since at least 2017, when she raised money for The Children's Home of Easton.
This year, the holiday stars seemed to align for Mammana.
On Nov. 1, she released a new single, "Let's Be in Love at Christmastime," and next week will kick off a tour that will take her to Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania.
So, she said, “I wanted to do something a little different this year."
"I thought it would be nice to perform a free concert for people of that community who like Christmas music and to help out the unhoused of Bethlehem at the same time and just collect items for them at the concert."Lehigh Valley-based jazz singer Corrine Mammana
She said she's "had a relationship" over the years with Christ Church United Church of Christ in Bethlehem, and knew it operated Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering, a cold weather shelter ministry that gives the unhoused a warmer environment for meals and a safe place to sleep.
So at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, Mammana will perform A Jazzy Little Christmas, a concert of Christmas music at the church, at 75 E. Market St.
Admission is free, but patrons are asked to bring household items to be donated to aid the unhoused of Bethlehem: full-sized shampoo, full-sized body wash, washcloths or new underwear (adult men and women).
"I thought it would be nice to perform a free concert for people of that community who like Christmas music and to help out the unhoused of Bethlehem at the same time and just collect items for them at the concert,” Mammana said.
People also are welcome to give monetary donations, she said. A love offering also will be collected for the musicians — she will perform with guitarist Tom Kozic and bassist Matt Hotchkiss.
A 'quirky song,' new direction
Two days later, Mammana will perform a similar free show at St. John's Church on Morgan Hill, 2720 Morgan Hill Road, Williams Township. A reception with cookies and light refreshments will follow.
Both shows will the same music, Mammana said: "Different arrangements of classic Christmas songs."
Those include "Christmastime is Here" from the TV special "A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and more sacred songs such as “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “Carol of the Bells" and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
Both shows also will highlight Mammana's new single, which was written and produced by her songwriting partner, Eric Todd.
"It’s a modern bossa nova-meets-classic-Christmas song," Mammana said. "It’s a quirky song. It’s about this girl who’s hopelessly lost in the friend zone at Christmastime.
“It sounds like a cell phone conversation, but it has a really charming chorus to it.”
Mammana said the song continues the musical path started with "Tickled Pink," a single she released in May that is more of a "bossa nova-jazzy-pop song." It has more than 57,000 views on YouTube.
“It represents me rebranding this year with my sound," she said. "So it aligns with my new more jazz-pop sound rather than the traditional jazz."
1 million streams globally
Not that Mammana's palette wasn't always broader than traditional jazz.
She's been known for creative arrangements sung in a sophisticated and soothing style comparable to Norah Jones.
That style, and Mammana's talent, has not only served her throughout the Lehigh Valley, but taken her to top jazz clubs: Birdland Jazz Club, the Metropolitan Room and the Duplex Cabaret Theatre in New York, and at the storied Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap.
It also put her 2022 EP, "In the Christmas City" on JazzWeek’s Top 200 chart and made her a staple of Sirius XM's, “Real Jazz Holiday” channel.
Mammana recently reached 1 million streams globally across all major streaming platforms.
The tour, which will kick off with a show Dec. 5 at Hotel Bethlehem, will conclude with her debut at New York City's The Green Room 42 on Dec. 21.
It will feature a vinyl release party of a double-sided, autographed, 12-inch pink vinyl disc features "Tickled Pink" and a "Tickled Pink" remix.
Mammana calls the remix "a dance lounge" version that's "getting lots of play on streaming platforms."
