The voice is unmistakable. That velvety croon, with tinges of R&B and jazz that can swiftly go from humor--one can almost hear the smile—to unabashed, suave romance.

Jon Secada has sold over 20 million CDs with this voice, but he’s never attempted something like this: A Christmas album of traditional songs set to Latin beats and decidedly non-traditional arrangements.

The resulting A Christmas Fiesta and Una Fiesta Navideña, the Spanish-language version, is unexpected and relentlessly joyful, providing a much-needed lift to oft-visited Christmas standards, and also revealing a glimpse of rarely visited material.

From “Sleigh Bells” to “Jingle Bells” to “Silver Bells,” you will recognize most of the repertoire here, but you won’t recognize the arrangements, a veritable journey through Latin America’s rich musical tradition. Set to salsa, bachata, cumbia, cha-cha and merengue, A Christmas Fiesta is a celebration where tradition and taste marry the most infectious beats in the world.

“I wanted it to be a tapestry of rhythms for the holidays,” says Secada.  “All those songs I love, because I grew up listening to them.  I wanted to bring them to our culture.”

Secada had visited Christmas fare before, in his 2001 classic recording The Gift. But the notion of a Christmas album infused in Latin spirit was born in 2005, when he recorded a version of the José Feliciano classic “Feliz Navidad” that was enthusiastically received by radio stations.

“It was more Latin than Feliciano’s original,” says Secada with a laugh. “From that point on, the idea stuck with me, and we started collecting Christmas songs that could harbor Latin rhythms. Most of them are up tempo, fun songs. They’re songs that make people want to have a Christmas Fiesta.”

Secada joined with friend and longtime collaborator and arranger Randy Barlow and visited over 30 Christmas songs. One by one, they played with arrangements, rhythms and instrumentation, “making sure it would fit melodically and that in singing it, it would sound natural,” says Secada. Most were discarded along the way.

It wasn’t simply about slapping congas to Christmas carols, stresses Secada. “For me the main thing was the musical integrity. Making sure that we were not cheating the style and we weren’t cheating the song.”

Secada knows all about musical integrity.

With a master’s degree in jazz vocal performance from the University of Miami, quality in musical performance and recording has always been a staple of Secada’s career. As a multiple Grammy winner and one of only a handful of acts who has successfully straddled the Latin and mainstream markets, picking up multiple gold and platinum albums in the process, he also understands what people will enjoy listening to and knows how to put it all together.

A Christmas Fiesta features Barlow’s arrangements, Secada’s vocals and a supporting cast of some of the top Latin session musicians in the world, including guitarist Dan Warner, bassist Ricardo Suarez, drummer Olbin Burgos, trumpet player Hernan “Teddy” Mulet, saxophonist Michael Scaglione, and percussionist Richard Bravo, many of whom were Jon’s team members from his days in Miami Sound Machine.

The CD kicks off with a piano tumbao that quickly welcomes percussion and upbeat trumpets to a salsa beat, a rhythm and cadence impossible to mentally place on a Christmas carol. When Secada’s voice comes in to sing “Jingle Bells,” one can’t help but smile in delight at how unexpected, and yet how perfect it is.

“We did it so you could hear all this music upfront and not know what was happening,” admits Secada. “We didn’t know it would work until we experimented with the rhythm and the beat.”

That sense of discovery is repeated throughout the album.

“Let It Snow” begins with touches of reggae then dissolves into a Colombian cumbia. “Sleigh Bells” has the drive of a Cuban salsa, featuring some of the lesser known lyrics associated with this beloved standard while “Jingle Bell Rock” takes on the beat of an irresistible cha-cha-cha.  Most of the tracks are upbeat, save for “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which becomes a gentle bachata, and “Silver Bells,” which trades in its two by four standard beat for the lilting one-two-three of a Peruvian waltz.

The crossover goes beyond the rhythms, with Spanish verses included in many of the songs. Because much of the repertoire had never been translated, Secada himself wrote Spanish versions for five tracks:  “Walking In A Winter Wonderland,” “Silver Bells,” “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “This Christmas,” that appear on Una Fiesta Navideña, the Spanish-language version of the album.

Secada, of course, is no stranger to challenge, in many languages.

After jump-starting his career as a songwriter and background vocalist for superstar Gloria Estefan, Jon’s self-titled debut album, released in 1992 on SBK/EMI, sold an astonishing six million plus copies worldwide and was certified triple platinum in the U.S., where it reached No. 15 on the Billboard 200 chart. He later scored a No.5 Pop hit with the Gold single "Just Another Day," and three more top 30 hits, "Angel," "I'm Free," and "Do You Believe in Us?" The Spanish-language version of the album, Otro Dia Mas Sin Verte (EMI-Latin), became the Number One Latin album of 1992 and earned Jon his first Grammy Award, for Best Latin Pop Album.

This landmark success was followed in 1994 by Jon's second album, Heart Soul and Voice (EMI. The album went Platinum in the U.S. and spun off the Top Ten Pop hit "If You Go" and a Top 30 hit "Mental Picture." His third album on EMI, “Amor,” was released in 1995 and earned the singer his second Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Performance.

In 2005, Jon signed to Big3 Records and released Same Dream, his debut for the label. The critically acclaimed CD was hailed by Billboard as “the kind of meticulously produced album that most of us thought were a thing of the past.”

Today, Jon continues to be on the cutting of pop music—in every language and in every genre, even Christmas music.

“I wanted to bring our culture to those Christmas songs and have everybody from Miami to Nebraska enjoy our rhythms during the holidays,” he says. “We wanted everybody that heard this record to associate these rhythms with something they hadn’t heard before. At the end of the day, if a good song is a good song, it can work in many formats.”

Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad!