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Vince Guaraldi ' A Charlie Brown Christmas |
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by Rick Holland
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 A Charlie Brown Christmas | | Personnel: Vince Guaraldi: piano, Fred Marshall or Monty Budwig: bass, Jerry Granelli or Colin Bailey: drums | | Tracks: 1. O Tannenbaum
2. What Child Is This
3. My Little Drum
4. Linus and Lucy
5. Christmas Time Is Here (instrumental)
6. Christmas Time Is Here (vocal)
7. Skating
8. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing
9. Christmas Is Coming
10. Fur Elise
11. The Christmas Song
12. Greensleeves
Bonus Tracks:
13. Christmas Is Coming (alternate take 1)
14. The Christmas Song (alternate take 3)
15. Greensleeves (alternate take 6)
16. Christmas Time Is Here (alternate vocal take 5) | |
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Artist: Vince Guaraldi
Label: Fantasy
This CD swings hard – AND – it has the necessary Christmas sounds to highlight a party or a romantic evening in front of the Jotul wood stove. OK – even by poolside if you happen to be in a snowless climate. Vince Guaraldi is one of the most underrated jazz pianists of the modern age. He was one of my early influences along with Bill Evans. I was enamored of the way Vince built his bebop lines – so elegant and musical.
I first heard him on his composition “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” when it became a hit on the Billboard top 100 list in 1962 – there was an abbreviated version, and an extended version which featured Vince stretching out. As I remember it was played in A major which did not seem to slow him down on his jazz chorus. I was so smitten with his sound I bought “Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus” that included Monty Budwig and Colin Bailey. This was a fantastic trio – oddly it never received the exposure it so richly deserved.
The tracks contain a mix of Christmas standards and Vince Guaraldi’s signature seasonal compositions such as “Linus and Lucy” and “Christmas Time Is Here”. That the music is primarily performed in a piano, bass, and drums format, and was featured on network television as a backdrop to some of the most enduring and recognizable cartoon characters in entertainment history is really quite phenomenal – things have changed rather drastically in the music business. Vince probably would never have seen the inside of a television sound stage were he part of today’s scene, so much has changed -- and in my opinion, not for the best. Listen to his lines on “Greensleeves” – very modern even by today’s standards. They absolute sparkle and swing with a wonderful energy and float over a symbiotic rhythm section. Playing for a commercial sound track can restrain improvisational freedom, but Vince displays no signs of musical shackles whenever there is an opening to flaunt it.
How was it possible that a television producer happened to hear the then unknown Guaraldi on the radio playing “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” and immediately determine that his group was perfect for a Charlie Brown special? And how was it even remotely possible that “Cast Your Fate” would become #22 on the Billboard list? It was because the music experience was extraordinarily different at that time both in instrumentation and sound expectations. The jazz trio was part and parcel of the American club scene, from San Francisco to Norwich, Connecticut, my hometown. The vast majority of the listening public was accustomed to the acoustic sound. Today, the vast majority does not like it simply because they are not exposed to it commercially anymore. I have played solo piano in hotels recently where a goodly portion of the patrons have been fairly rude and inconsiderate – they simply do not know how to react to a musician performing on an acoustic instrument. I just love it when they put a handful of pocket change into the tip jar -- makes me think some rather bad thoughts about them and their ancestors.
Thankfully there are recordings so that timeless music such as this is not lost, and Fantasy has done a great job of re-mastering the material in this re-release. The music contained here is a wonderful collection of Christmas music performed by skilled and very musical individuals. Listening to Vince Guaraldi’s music is nostalgic to me; it is timeless in the emotions it can evoke from a listener. Anyone that can perform a commercial sound track like this and still create some great jazz solos deserves to be heard again and again. Vince Guaraldi, sadly, died of a heart attack between sets at a jazz club in San Francisco, the day after finishing some of these tracks in 1976. He was forty seven.
John Ferrara
November 2006
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Rick Holland |
| About the author: |
| A versatile musician and veteran performer in organizations such as the Louie Bellson Big Band (Chicago Based Band), Jimmy Dorsey, Mike Pendowski, Rob Parton , Buddy De Franco, Buselli-Wallrab and Terry Gibbs Bands, Rick Holland brings a wealth of experience and musicality to each performance. |
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