Chestnuts Roasted, and Sometimes Burned.

Too often holiday music is about comfort: familiar melodies, familiar sentiments, familiar styles. And for some that may well be enough: never underestimate the power of the reliable. But so much great music comes from artists who understand that the holiday season is just another topic -- it can inspire reverence and jubilation, of course, but also self-doubt, skepticism, comedy, fear, resentment and so much more. Here, the pop and jazz critics of The New York Times highlight the best of the traditional, the best of the progressive and some others with room to grow. (Prices may vary from those listed here, depending on where you shop.) JON CARAMANICA GERI ALLEN: 'A CHILD IS BORN' The rare Christmas record that transcends background music, nostalgia or pure business, this first Christmas album by the jazz pianist Geri Allen is serious and thoughtful. She rearranges songs like ''We Three Kings'' and ''It Came Upon a Midnight Clear'' for solo piano and other instruments including celesta and Farfisa organ, darkening them into unanswerable questions; in her hands, they sound influenced by late Coltrane, late-1960s Miles Davis and gospel music. She also weaves in under-a-minute snippets of multitracked improvisations and recorded segments of singing by the Gee's Bend Quilters Collective, the Alabaman craftswomen. (Motema, $14.99) BEN RATLIFF [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]