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| MUSTHEAR REVIEW: |
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| Remember those old CBS specials with Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts characters--Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Freda, Schroeder, Snoopy, Woodstock? The first of the animated specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas, appeared in 1965 and was a huge hit and became a holiday tradition. If you were a kid when CBS aired the Peanuts specials (at least through the 1980s), you remember how excited you got when the word "special" in capital letters would whoosh and spin on the screen leaving colored trails, and that syncopated music would start playing. A generation of kids would curl up on den floors , wrapped in their blankets and watching in bliss. But have you seen those specials recently? They’re really not that great. The experience is sort of like going back to your old elementary school and trying out the swing. It’s rusty and you don’t fit anymore. What was the excitement all about? Well, you were a kid. And if you’re reading this, chances are that you’re not now. But don’t dismay. There remains something about these old specials to astonish you anew. It’s the music of Vince Guaraldi. Vince Guaraldi’s name and fame is eternally linked with Charlie Brown’s. But he wasn’t always the Peanuts pianist. He actually started out as a sideman working for some big names: Woody Herman, Nina Simone, Cal Tjader, Stan Getz. He also recorded his own albums, such as 1957’s A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing (what a title) and 1963’s Jazz Casual. It was 1964’s Jazz Impressions of Black that first brought him his first real success. Perhaps due to his rising popularity, Guaraldi was commissioned to write some music for a documentary about Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip. Guaraldi’s Trio, with Colin Bailey on drums and Monty Budwig on bass, came up with the wonderful music on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, which came out in 1964. It was a Guarldi’s biggest hit to date, and when the holiday special and the attendant album were released, Guaraldi was officially a star. The holiday album is full of swinging cheer, but for my money, I can do without "Christmas Is Coming," "Greensleeves," "Christmas Song," and "O Tannenbaum." Maybe the fact that they start playing Christmas music just after Halloween has turned me into a Scrooge, but I enjoy the earlier album more. A Boy Named Charlie Brown kicks off with "Oh Good Grief," which expresses in a swinging, whimsical way Charlie Brown’s despair. In the main theme, Guaraldi plays the same notes with the right and left hand, which creates an odd, weightless, expansive feeling. The trio moves on to "Pebble Beach," a cool California samba inspired by Guaraldi’s time with Getz and Mongo Santamaria. ?Happiness Is? is a lovely ballad, and "Schroeder" a version of a Beethoven minuet. It’s "Charlie Brown Theme" and "Linus and Lucy" that are the most famous tunes here. On the "Theme" Bailey breaks out the brushes, Guaraldi plays those blue trills, and Budwig sticks to a traditional walking blues. The highlight of the album is "Linus and Lucy," an absolutely joyful chase and pursuit of a song: The heavy latin rhythms of the main theme anchor the song and the effervescent second theme wrap around it. The album never reaches these heights, though the rest is wonderful, especially "Baseball Theme." The effect of listening to this album now is stunning, especially if, like me, you learned to love jazz later in life. Here is the most typical jazz trio, but it’s suffused with warm humor and youthful exuberance. One realizes listening to these songs why jazz was so well suited to Charlie Brown, who is the blues wrapped up into one round-headed child. Snoopy is a cool hep-cat, and the two combine capture the two sides of jazz. One of the cool things about these two albums is that they succeeded in sneaking jazz into people’s lives when they were too young to know what they were getting. If you ask the typical Top-40-listening philistine if he likes jazz and he’ll say no. Ask the same meathead if he likes the Charlie Brown music and you’ll most likely get an enthusiastic response. Well, does he like jazz? Of course! Just as John Berger in Ways of Seeing tells us that we need to educate ourselves to see art, we need to educate ourselves to listen to music. Guaraldi is a great door into jazz. Why did so many close that door when they stopped being children? —Scott Holden Smith (email) January 27, 2005
Tracks: 1. Oh, Good Grief! 2. Pebble Beach 3. Happiness Is 4. Schroeder 5. Charlie Brown Theme 6. Linus and Lucy 7. Blue Charlie Brown 8. Baseball Theme 9. Freda (With the Naturally Curly Hair) 10. Fly Me to the Moon [*] Players: |
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