Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2024 December 02 • Monday

Vince Guaraldi is one of the giants of jazz piano. If you like Ahmad Jamal, you'll like Vince Guaraldi—although each has his own distinct style. You'll never confuse the two but they dwell in overlapping spheres.

While I never watched any of the animated Charlie Brown TV programs growing up, and didn't warm to them as an adult viewer, Guaraldi's music for them is absolutely sublime. When one of these records starts, everything else stops.

And so our 833rd Soundtrack of the Week, only a few days late to be right on the nose, is Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

This 50th Anniversary edition has some studio chatter in it, which will be the first thing you hear before the trio swings into "Charlie Brown Blues", an absolutely gorgeous piece that immediately lifted my spirits.

When you first hear the "Thanksgiving Theme" it's as an 11-second solo piano outing, followed by a longer jazz waltz version with Guaraldi playing acoustic and electric piano—at the same time on mutiple tracks. It's also beautiful. This might be the pinnacle of Charlie Brown music.

"Peppermint Patty" has a driving backbeat and Guaraldi's multiple keyboard lines—acoustic and electric piano as well as clavinet—breeze effortlessly above them. Each track sounds like the best track on the album.

Horns and vocals then join the trio for the funky "Little Birdie". Guaraldi does the singing ("Little birdie, why do you fly upside down? / What's amazing is the way you get around) while the horngs are courtesy of Chuck Bennett on trombone and Tom Harrell, who takes several impressive solos, on trumpet.

The lean and mean funk goes in a jazz direction for the brief "Thanksgiving Interlude" before the laidback funk/blues groove of "Is It James or Charlie?" gives some space to Guaraldi's impressive guitar playing. Quite the talented guy!

Of course the famous Peanuts theme has to be in here somewhere and you'll find a killer arrangement of it for the quintet in "Linus and Lucy".

There are some alternate takes, different mixes and bonus tracks as well, making this an essential record to have.