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DULUTH — A friend recently admitted that, in fact, he’s not a big fan of Peanuts’ holiday specials. “They’re kind of sentimental,” he said.
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Fair. Not everyone needs to commemorate the season with Charlie Brown’s eternal misery, which culminates in a Halloween special where every adult in the neighborhood gives a child an actual rock instead of candy. Still, the original 1965 Christmas show brought Minnesota-raised creator Charles M. Schulz’s cartoons to the screen in a blend of sweetness and melancholy that immediately set it apart from more traditional festival programs are distinguished.
Producer Lee Mendelson knew immediately that jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976) would be a key member of the special’s artistic team. Guaraldi’s looks are debonair and unpretentious, wobbly and sincere. The soundtrack, a mix of original compositions and new arrangements of Christmas classics, takes on a life of its own, and it’s almost tied with Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” as the best-selling jazz album of all time.
This season, the original soundtrack has been remixed and released on
The heaviest edition is the Super Deluxe Edition, an 80-track collection that includes a hardcover volume written by Guaraldi expert Derrick Bang. While the notes alone are worth buying for superfans, more casual connoisseurs can check out the collection on streaming services like Spotify.
If you’ve been wishing the original series was five times as long, be aware that’s not the same thing. Bonus material will be of great interest to music executives, curious to see how Guaraldi and his bandmates forge tight leads with true jazz spontaneity, experimenting with different compositional approaches such as “Christmas is Coming ’, a big dance groove with bossa nova.
The gems of the episode include a later, slightly more reflective rendition of “O Tannenbaum,” heard in the special immediately after Linus’ iconic Bible reading. However, what will make your heart explode like a cocoa bomb is the recording segment with the deliberately imperfect children’s choir. In the middle of the shot, the kids giggle with Guaraldi, making it clear that the warmth radiating from this classic record is very real.
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