Each day through Christmas Eve, I'll be picking an album, recording or song of the season that I like quite a bit, as something of a musical advent calendar. I kicked it off yesterday with a nod to Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas; today, and also in a jazzy vein, is a record that pretty much says "Christmas" to people of my generation. We're the ones who grew up on A Charlie Brown Christmas; yes, the special still airs every year, but we're the kids, I think, who relate to it most deeply.
I've played the Vince Guaraldi Trio's album so much, I know pretty much every note (including the version of Für Elise that Schroeder supposedly plays on his toy piano). The music here is really iconic: Linus and Lucy, Christmas Is Coming, Skating, Christmas Time is Here ... even if people don't know the names of the songs, they know the tune.
I didn't know until I saw a 2001 documentary on the making of the 1965 special how close the project seemed to failure, and how risky it was for Bill Melendez and his team to pick Guaraldi, a jazz pianist who played in the style of Dave Brubeck. At that point, like now, mixing jazz and kids was far from a sure thing. When the show was turned over to CBS, network executives reacted with horror over the soundtrack.
It all seems foolish now: the music is as familiar and comforting as a warm mitten, and heraldic of Christmas. (Bet you can dance like at least once one of the kids in the famous stage sequences, too.)
That's Linus and Lucy, the song, of course (with a few bars of Christmas Is Coming off the top). My favourite? While I love the lazy, languid feel of the piano, bass and brushes on Christmas Time Is Here (the instrumental version), the song I always enjoy most is Skating. Here's another YouTube video I found, in which someone set the music to some homemade shots.
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