Vince Guaraldi - Its The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown '2018

Tracks list

Vince Guaraldi was a well-respected jazz pianist whose greatest success came
from avenues usually closed to contemporary jazz artists: he enjoyed a hit
single at a time when jazz had largely been exiled from the pop charts, and he
scored a series of very successful animated television specials, a medium where
cookie-cutter pop music was traditionally the order of the day.

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was born in San Francisco, California on July 17, 1928.
A loyal son of the Bay Area, Guaraldi graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School
in the citys Sunset District, and after serving in the military during the
Korean War, he returned home and enrolled at San Francisco State University.
While attending college, Guaraldi developed a passion for the piano, sparked by
the blues and boogie-woogie sounds of Jimmy Yancy, Albert Ammons, and Pete
Johnson. When Guaraldi began following their example on the keyboard, he took a
detour into jazz, exploring the work of Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, as well
as guitarist Tal Farlow (Guaraldi dabbled on the six-string as well), and he
became a frequent visitor at San Francisco jazz clubs such as Jacksons Nook and
The Black Hawk, occasionally sitting in with local acts such as Sonny Criss,
Bill Harris, and Chubby Jackson. One of Guaraldis first notable gigs was an
intimidating booking, playing during intermissions at The Black Hawk during a
residency by the legendary Art Tatum; Guaraldi pulled it off, and in 1951, he
joined the trio of vibraphonist Cal Tjader, appearing on Tjaders first album for
the prestigious San Francisco jazz imprint Fantasy Records. While Guaraldi soon
left Tjaders group, hed rejoin them in 1955 and was a frequent guest on Tjaders
recording sessions, appearing on over a dozen albums with the vibraphonist, and
performed with the group for their legendary late-night appearance at the 1958
Monterey Jazz Festival. In 1955, Guaraldi began performing with his own combo
and appeared with his quartet on an album called Modern Music from San
Francisco, which also featured the Ron Crotty Trio (Guaraldi accompanied Crotty
on these sessions), and the Jerry Dodgion Quartet. Though Guaraldi made time for
his own music, he also continued to accompany other acts, touring with Woody
Hermans Thundering Herd and recording and playing out with Brew Moore, Conte
Candoli, and Frank Rosolino, among others.

Guaraldis first full album with his own group, simply titled The Vince Guaraldi
Trio, was issued by Fantasy in 1956, and featured the pianist with guitarist
Eddie Duran and bassist Dean Reilly. Guaraldis first big break came in 1962;
with his new trio (Monty Budwig on bass and Colin Bailey on drums), he recorded
an album called Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, in which the combo
interpreted selections from Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfás score for
Marcel Camus classic film. To fill out the album, Guaraldi included an original
tune hed written called Cast Your Fate to the Wind. Samba de Orpheus was
released as a single, with Cast Your Fate as the B-side; Samba de Orpheus
attracted little notice, but a DJ at Sacramento radio station KROY heard Cast
Your Fate and liked it enough to put it in regular rotation. Other stations
followed suit and Cast Your Fate to the Wind became a hit, rising to the Top 20
of the pop charts and earning Guaraldi a gold record as well as a Grammy for
Best Original Jazz Composition. (The singles unlikely success even prompted a
television special on San Franciscos public television outlet KQED, entitled
Anatomy of a Hit.) Following the success of Cast Your Fate, Guaraldi recorded a
handful of albums with guitarist Bola Sete and composed an unusual song cycle in
which he and his trio accompanied the choir of San Franciscos Grace Cathedral
for what Rev. Charles Gompertz called a modern setting for the choral Eucharist.

But it was in 1964 that Guaraldi took his first step toward the music that would
make him most famous. Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, a pair of television
writers and producers, were working on a documentary about Charles Schulz, the
creator of the popular comic strip Peanuts, and they approached Guaraldi to
compose the score. The documentary never aired, but when Mendelson and Melendez
teamed up with Schulz in 1965 to create an animated Christmas special featuring
the Peanuts characters, they wanted a score with a different flavor than most
Saturday morning cartoons, and once again asked Guaraldi to collaborate. A
Charlie Brown Christmas was an immediate hit with audiences and critics alike,
and has become a Yuletide perennial, broadcast every December, and Guaraldis
score -- by turns full of contemplative beauty and brimming with high-spirited
joy -- was cited by many as one of the best things about the show. When
Mendelson, Melendez, and Schulz began work on a second Peanuts special, Its the
Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Guaraldi was again invited to write the music. He
became an integral part of the production team behind the specials (generally at
least one was produced each year), and also wrote music for the Peanuts-themed
feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Guaraldis work on the Peanuts projects
kept him busy enough that he would release only six more albums during the rest
of his recording career (including two albums for Warner Bros. that found him
experimenting with electric instruments), though he kept up a schedule of live
performances in addition to his television commitments. On February 6, 1976,
Vince Guaraldi died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Menlo Park, California;
he had completed recording of his score for Its Arbor Day, Charlie Brown earlier
in the day, and was resting between shows during a nightclub engagement when he
collapsed and never woke up.

Mendelson and Melendez continued to produce Peanuts specials after Guaraldis
death, but they acknowledged the pianist was difficult to replace, and in 1992,
with Its Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown, they went back to using Guaraldis
themes for the shows, as performed by David Benoit, a jazz pianist who has cited
Guaraldi as a major influence. George Winston, Wynton & Ellis Marsalis, and Dave
Brubeck have also paid homage to Guaraldis music for the Peanuts specials, while
a number of pop, rock, and hip-hop artists have recorded his pieces, including
Danny Gatton, Gary Hoey, Pizzicato Five, and Game Theory. ~ Mark Deming

Tracklist:
01. Vince Guaraldi - Linus And Lucy
02. Vince Guaraldi - Graveyard Theme
03. Vince Guaraldi - Snoopy And The Leaf / Frieda (With The Naturally Curly
Hair)
04. Vince Guaraldi - The Great Pumpkin Waltz
05. Vince Guaraldi - Linus And Lucy (Reprise)
06. Vince Guaraldi - Charlie Brown Theme / Happy Linus
07. Vince Guaraldi - The Great Pumpkin Waltz (Reprise)
08. Vince Guaraldi - The Red Baron / Military Drum March
09. Vince Guaraldi - The Great Pumpkin Waltz (2nd Reprise)
10. Vince Guaraldi - Trick Or Treat
11. Vince Guaraldi - Fanfare / Breathless / Trick Or Treat (Reprise)
12. Vince Guaraldi - Charlie Brown Theme (Reprise)
13. Vince Guaraldi - Breathless
14. Vince Guaraldi - It’s A Long Way To Tipperary / There’s A
Long, Long Trail A-Winding / Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag / Roses
Of Picardy
15. Vince Guaraldi - Trick Or Treat (2nd Reprise)
16. Vince Guaraldi - Linus And Lucy (2nd Reprise)
17. Vince Guaraldi - Charlie Brown Theme (2nd Reprise)

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