Vince Guaraldi Leads a Jazzy Trio in A Charlie Brown Christmas

Last night, I arrived home from work just in time to catch A Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC. We have the special on DVD, but there’s something extra special about watching it at a time when you know millions of other people are watching it too. I sat down on the couch and let the refreshing simplicity of the special wash over me. With that fresh in my mind, I decided it was past time to listen to the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack I borrowed from the library a while back. Listening to the soothing melodies of the Vince Guaraldi Trio - with composer Guaraldi on the piano, Monty Budwig on the bass and Colin Bailey on the drums - is a perfect way to spend 40 minutes on a dreary winter day.

O Tannenbaum begins as a fairly straightforward reading of the traditional carol on the piano, but then the bass and drums join in and the piano takes on a jazzy quality before going off on a melodic tangent that only occasionally seems to have any direct similarity to the tune. Gradually, the loud brightness of the midsection fades into a much softer tone, recalling Charlie Brown and Linus bypassing all the flashy trees for the humble little bent-over pine.

What Child is This takes a moment to become recognizable, but once it does, it is more straightforward than the previous track, with just the occasional change to the rhythm and little alteration to the melody until the song nears the two-minute mark. At that point, it goes off in a different direction, ending the song in rather unfamiliar territory.

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing features so-soft-it’s-barely-audible organ music as the children hum the melody. Then the accompaniment grows louder as the children switch over to singing, concluding the track with a nice bit of high harmony.

Fur Elise, the shortest track, is the Beethoven song so readily associated with piano prodigy Schroeder. Just the piano here, and no fancy flourishes. Though it doesn’t quite fit with the style of most of the tracks, as a musical representation of Schroeder, it’s perfect.

The Christmas Song allows Guaraldi more opportunity to have fun with the piano. Though he doesn’t stray far from the basic tune, he plays it with a jazzy flair, with a bit of soft help now and then from the bass and a big dramatic finish.

Greensleeves is the final track on the album and the longest of the “traditional” tracks. Just before the two-minute mark, it ceases to sound much like Greensleeves and becomes an opportunity for Guaraldi to play around on the piano, though hints of the tune return from time to time, as well as possible nods to other songs. Around the three and a half minute mark, the basic melody returns, for the most part, for the remainder of the song.

My Little Drum gives credit to Guaraldi instead of merely noting that he did the arrangement, but this song, which also features some very soft background vocals by children, is quite obviously a riff on The Little Drummer Boy.

Christmas Time Is Here appears in two forms. The first is purely instrumental, while the second features the voices of young children. This song is one of the two most recognized songs from the special. It evokes innocence and simple childhood pleasures, like a line of children skating across a frozen pond. The instrumental version is twice as long as the other, but I think I prefer it to the vocal version. I’ve always found something slightly creepy about all those high voices singing this together. Also, I love how at the end of the instrumental version, the piano imitates the mandolin. “Christmas time is here / Happiness and cheer / Fun for all, what children call the greatest time of year.”

Skating captures the whimsy of Snoopy and the children as they glide, sometimes gracefully, sometimes not. Toward the middle the track gets an almost country flavor to it, while the melody reminds me a bit of Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Christmas Is Coming is a bit louder than most of the tracks, focusing on the energy of anticipation. It’s the last of the original Guaraldi compositions on the album, and it shifts tone a couple of times to encompass different reactions to the holiday.

By far the most iconic track on the album is Linus and Lucy, which is synonymous not only with A Charlie Brown Christmas but with Charlie Brown, period. I hear the lively piano tune in my head when I read Peanuts comic books or even just the strip in the Sunday paper. Poor Charlie Brown gets cheated out of his own theme song, with the supporting Van Pelts stealing the limelight from him; somehow, that seems very fitting! Like most of the tracks here, it deviates from the main melody a couple of times, but that just makes me appreciate it all the more when it comes back. I like the tune so much that it’s the only ringtone I’ve ever had on my cell phone. It’s a lucky thing my phone doesn’t ring much, since listening to Schroeder pound away on that piano makes me want to get up and dance like Snoopy.

That’s the kind of reaction Ralph J. Gleason describes in his liner notes when he talks about the difficulty of paying homage to someone else’s artistic expression with art of one’s own. “He took his inspiration from the creations of Charles Schulz and made music that reflects that inspiration, is empathetic with the image and is still solidly and unmistakably Vince Guaraldi,” Gleason writes. How very true. I can’t hear this music without thinking of Charlie Brown, and I can’t think of Charlie Brown without hearing this music.