Leslie Odom, Jr. To Bring Christmas Tour to MGM Northfield Park

In September, Leslie Odom, Jr. returned to Broadway to reprise his portrayal of Aaron Burr in Hamilton. His return to the musical came nine years after he took his final bow in July 2016. So what has it been like to return to the popular musical?

“The show is still a masterpiece,” says Leslie Odom, Jr. via phone from his dressing room where he was prepping for an evening show. He brings his Christmas tour to MGM Northfield Park — Center Stage on Sunday, Dec. 7. “I got everything I came for. I didn’t have kids the first time I did the show, and there were some things emotionally that I wanted to work through and I thought that the show might be able to help me work through those things. It really has. I’ve been here for 12 weeks. I got eight more shows left.”

Odom, Jr. says that when the show launched back all those years ago, he knew it felt right to him. He didn’t realize it would feel right to so many other people too.

“You can’t know that — fortunately or unfortunately, we never know those things,” he says. “The only thing I knew was how it made me feel. It felt in line with dreams I had when I was a kid. That’s what I knew. That is a good feeling to follow, no matter how something turns out. I knew I would have no regrets knowing that it made me feel like that.”

The current tour is a Christmas tour, and Odom, Jr. will draw from his Christmas albums that came out in 2016 and 2020.

“The thing I hear the most about after Hamilton is these Christmas albums. I hear about them in airports and when I travel,” he says. “They’re perennial. People put them on when they’re decorating their trees and spending time with their families. I’ve been able to expand on my relationship with this audience of people who discovered me with Hamilton and have stayed with me. The tour is a celebration of those albums. They have a real following. Last year was the first year we toured it. This year it is selling remarkably well. It’s already being booked for next year. It brings me real joy to feel that I can be of service this time of year.”

Odom, Jr. says he is well-aware of how Christmas albums often become timeless classics but that the competition is fierce.

“The reason why we worked so hard on those albums and lost so much sleep over them is that you want to make something that will sound as good 30 years from now or 50 years from now,” he says. “In America, it’s as if w.e hit the pause button in the ’50s and ’60s and that is the sound of Christmas music. It is Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. When I listen to these albums of mine a decade later, it’s the same album I would make today if you put me in a studio. I would make that album all over again.”

Odom, Jr. also has a new alive album out, An Offering: Live at Speakeasy Studios. He recorded it at a Burbank studio that’s closing at the year’s end, and he wanted to lay down some tracks at the place one last time.

“I cried many tears and climbed mountains there,” he says. “I left frustrated and have come back the next day and have gone further than I ever thought I would. The live album felt fitting.”

The first album Odom, Jr. ever made was a one he recorded in 2014 at Speakeasy. In the attempt to nail a tune, he did 300 takes of a song, and it didn’t even make the record.

“That was what it used to take for me to be good enough for myself,” he says. “I used to be so hard on myself. Other people were so generous and kind. The live album is a celebration of this last decade of growth. I don’t need 300 takes anymore to live with myself. It’s a real sign of maturation for me.”

The current live show will feature a bit of everything, including songs from Hamilton, and Odom, Jr. simply hopes people leave happy.

“We want people to leave with a smile on their face,” he says. “What I’ve learned about these audiences as we’ve toured the country for these past nine years is that the audience looks a lot like the Hamilton audiences. There are little kids and grandparents in there. We’ll sing Broadway tunes and Christmas tunes. We will try to do our best to bring the house down.”

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