WHITNEY HOUSTON: "One Wish" (Arista)


Momentarily freed from the pressure to choose the right pop pose, Whitney Houston can simply bestow her vocal gifts on the familiar songs (plus two inoffensive new ones) that fill her Christmas album. The lavish swoops, the sultry whispers, the gospelly asides and the meteoric crescendos are all applied to songs that are usually arranged with the burnished keyboards and subdued percussion of current R&B. The ballads are impressive, though they can verge on soupy; turning ecumenical, she adds Hanukkah and Kwanzaa to Mel Tormé's "Christmas Song." A medley of "Deck the Halls" and "Silent Night" shows a frisky side, and "O Come O Come Emmanuel" is the tour de force: Ms. Houston sailing above an unaccompanied male choir, harmonizing like Take 6, that's actually the multitracked voice of her producer, Mervyn Warren. It's enough to make a listener forgive Ms. Houston for pushing her daughter forward on "Little Drummer Boy."

-JON PARELES