VINCE GUARALDI
Born on July 17, 1928 in San Francisco, California, Vincent Anthony Guaraldi remained in the San Francisco area throughout his childhood and college days at San Francisco State College. He had every intention of following in the family business footsteps by entering the printing industry. But his mother had taught him how to play the piano at age 7 and Guaraldi could never give it up.
Like most artists Guaraldi had to work his way to the top directly from the bottom. While he was already performing jazz piano in college, he started professionally by playing as an intermission pianist at a local San Francisco night club. In the mid 50's he put together his own jazz trio and performed at the legendary San Francisco club "the hungry i," the same club where the famous folk group The Kingston Trio would later polish their act at. Soon, the trio was a local hit (Guaraldi had earned the nickname "Dr. Funk") and they headed to the recording studio.
He made a couple albums with the trio in the late 50's and also performed with a big band for a year. Guaraldi's reputation as one of San Francisco's best jazz musicians had been solidified. Then in 1962 he made an album of jazz impressions of the original soundtrack to the 1959 French film "Black Orpheus." A single was released off the album, and as so often happened in the music industry at the time, the b-side of the single was played by a Sacramento DJ on the radio. Quickly, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a smash hit across the country and around the world. The record went gold and it earned Guaraldi his first Grammy in 1963 for Best Instrumental Jazz Composition.
Around that same time in 1963 a young producer named Lee Mendelson was planning a television special about Charles Schulz and Charlie Brown's horrible baseball team. He was driving into San Francisco and just happened to be thinking about the possible music he would use as a sound track to his Schulz TV special. Then "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" came on the radio and Mendelson knew that Guaraldi would be perfect. He contacted Vince who just happened to be an avid reader of the Peanuts comic strip and the collaboration was born. Within a short time Guaraldi had penned the now famous Peanuts theme song, "Linus and Lucy." Though the special never was bought by the networks to show on television, the combination of Charles Schulz' stories and characters, Bill Melendez' animation, and Vince Guaraldi's music would combine two years later in 1965 with the first televised Peanuts animated special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
The special was a hit, as was Guaraldi's soundtrack for the television special. The soundtrack album had sold more than 1 million copies by 1997 and remains a top holiday seller in record stores. Most famous was the opening song "Christmas Time Is Here," which actually featured words by Lee Mendelson. Guaraldi went on to compose and record the soundtrack for the first 15 Peanuts animated television specials and also composed and recorded the soundtrack for the first Peanuts feature length film "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" in 1969.
Guaraldi released three albums that featured music from Peanuts animated specials. The first, of course, was "A Charlie Brown Christmas." The next was the soundtrack for "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," and the last was "Oh, Good Grief!" On February 6th, 1976, Vince Guaraldi died of a sudden heart attack. That afternoon, before his death, Guaraldi finished recording the soundtrack to the Peanuts special "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown," which aired just 5 weeks after his death.
In 1998, a fourth album of Guaraldi's Peanuts music was issued, entitled "Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits," and features many previously unavailable songs from many of the first 15 Peanuts television specials.
In 2003, a fifth album of previously unreleased original Guaraldi recordings from 1968-1973 was issued, entitled "The Charlie Brown Suite & Other Favorites." The centerpiece of the album was the 7 song "Charlie Brown Suite" performed live. Also featured was a nice version of "Cast Your Fate to the Wind."
In November of 2004, a new album was released that featured some previously unreleased tracks by Vince Guaraldi. The "Oaxaca" CD contained nine tracks of previously unreleased Guaraldi performances. The album included two Peanuts songs making their CD debut: "Charlie Brown Blues" was a composition that appeared in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," while "You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown" was the title and main theme to the show of that name. "Oaxaca" was available for purchase only at the Vince Guaraldi web site at VinceGuaraldi.com.
(Written by Eric A. Wildgrube. Many thanks to the author's of the source material used for this article: Derrick Bang and Victor Lee, "50 Years of Happiness: A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz," 2000, pages 88-97. George Winston, "Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi," 1996, CD liner notes. Lee Mendelson, "A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition," 2000, pages 81-91.)
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