'A Charlie Brown Christmas' at 50: the story of the Schulz special and Guaraldi's classic soundtrack

While much of the short film's success is down to its endearing characters and storyline, it was undoubtedly the wonderful, all-swinging score composed by the late, great pianist Vince Guaraldi (and performed by his trio) that defined it an instant classic. In fact, the music is so rich and seductive throughout that many remember the film's music as being some of the first jazz they ever heard.

As a bit of a back-story, the special was commissioned by the Coca-Cola Company (itself linked to Christmas) and director Bill Melendez and producer Lee Mendelson were given the green light to put it all together just three months prior to its transmission date. Within such a short time frame creator Charles M. Schulz had to write a script and Guaraldi the score, both to a brief that would encapsulate both the commercial and traditional values of Christmas. As a former sideman to such jazz luminaries as Cal Tjader, Ben Webster and Woody Herman, Guaraldi was signed up to work on the special in the Autumn of 1965, exactly two years after Mendelson first heard the pianist's Grammy-winning composition 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind' (from the album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus) and hired him to write some music for a documentary he was making on Schulz.

One of the tunes Guaraldi surrendered for the Schulz doc was the now infamous 'Linus & Lucy', a catchy latin-laced tune that quickly became one of Guaraldi's signature pieces and has since become as instantly detectable as the Peanuts franchise itself. Deemed suitable for the Christmas special too 'Linus & Lucy' featured along-side swing arrangements of traditional favourites (Hark, the Herald, O Tannenbaum, What Child is This), Mel Tormè's 'Christmas Song' (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)andalsoBeethoven's Für Elise. But it was other Guaraldi originals, assembled as a soundtrack on the Fantasy label, that proved most memorable throughout the film's 25 minute run. In one scene the screen is white with falling snowflakes as the children glide across the ice to the bouncy jazz waltzer 'Skating'. But it's the opening scene that instantly conjures up the spirit of the season as 'Christmas Time is Here' is sung by a children's choir (from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in California), again spitting with snow a conversation about the meaning of Christmas is underpinned by delicately-planted delicate chords and the faint swishing of brushes and double bass.

Speaking to both producer of all the Peanuts specials Lee Mendelson and one of the last remaining musicians on the Christmas album, drummer Colin Bailey, self-confessed Peanuts fan Mark Youll was keen to learn more about this magical film, and what it was about Vince Guaraldi's mesmerising score that made it an instant Christmas classic.

Lee Mendelson

Whose idea was it to feature jazz music in the soundtrack?

Lee Mendelson: We had done a documentary on Charles Schulz in 1963 and Vince Guaraldi had done some jazz music for that. So in 1965, the day we were planning the Christmas show and decided to use him again. We also added a little Beethoven and traditional music and all three got into the show.

Your decision to use Vince Guaraldi was based on 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind', were you familiar with his music at that point?

LM: Yes, in 1963, once we'd finished the documentary, we were looking for music and wasn't sure what to use. I was driving over Golden Gate Bridge and heard 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind'. It had just won a Grammy and I found out he was living in San Francisco so we got in touch and he did the music for the documentary. He also wrote 'Linus & Lucy' and ' Oh Good Grief' and two years later he wrote music for the Christmas show which also included those and some other songs.

When did you first meet Vince Guaraldi?

LM: Around three days after I heard his track on the radio, around November 1963 I think it was.

How would you describe Vince both as a person and musician?

Vince did all 15 (specials) before his passing so we were close friends for ten years. He was wonderful to work with and he loved doing Charlie Brown. In fact, he put all his other commitments to one side to focus on Charlie Brown. He was a tremendous piano player and a great composer. He was also a very amicable guy; we never had an argument in ten years. I did get worried one time when he said he was gonna sing a couple of songs he's written called 'Little Birdie' and 'Joe Cool', but he did well.

What was it in his playing and composing style that you think worked so wonderfully in Peanuts?

LM: Very simply, I've always been a big jazz fan and when I heard 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind' I felt it was jazz music that could relate to both adults and children. It was improvisational jazz but it was very child-like. Funnily, he was kind of child-like in the same way. But that was reason it worked well.

Guaraldi sound-tracked the specials well into the 1970s away from the traditional trio format. Was it his idea to start using electric instruments and bring a funkier edge to the music? 

LM: All that funky stuff, all the Moog synthesizers was his idea, including him singing on some of the songs. Of course, I didn't know what he was talking about when he brought all this stuff in but I remember saying no matter how upgraded we are with these things (instrumentation), let's not lose the traditional piano. So we had a mix of both. I didn't want to him to fall in love with the Moog synthesiser and he didn't, he spaced it all out.

How much would you say the success of the Christmas special is down to Guaraldi's score?

LM: Absolutely critical. I think the music made the show successful because it made it adult-like and child-like, and we wanted the show to appeal to all ages. Now of course the music has become famous world-wide. I can't go to any country where the piano player in the hotel doesn't know the music.

 What do you remember about the sessions for the album?

Originally I was at all of them where there was just a trio or quartet, then they brought in (arranger, composer, and orchestra leader) John Scott Trotter later on, he was Bing Crosby's music guy and he helped arrange tracks and give us a beginning middle and end. Sometimes we didn't have a beginning middle and end as the music was improvisational. All the sessions were fun and exciting and he did the first 15 shows for first ten years from '65 through to '75.

You famously wrote the lyrics to "Christmas Time is Here", tell me about how that came about?

LM: The show was finished and it seemed to open very slowly. There was a beautiful melody Vince had written over the skating (scene) so I called some lyricists to see if somebody would write some words, nobody would write some words so I sat down at my kitchen table and wrote the words on an envelope and handed it to Vince and said go get a choir, he went and got a kids choir and it all happened in about 48 hours. We gave the kids ice-cream and hamburgers while they waited around between takes.now they are all around sixty years old. 

What is it about the music in the special that appealed to so many and continues to this day?

LM: It's a mix of the jazz music, thanksgiving and baseball. You have the traditional Christmas music and a little Beethoven thrown in so there's a little bit for everybody. I think the most interesting thing for me was he wrote 'Linus & Lucy' in November of 1963 with a so-called garage band. There was a garage band in Liverpool, England around that same time writing their first hit. Six years later the Beatles were nominated for best music score and so was Vince Guaraldi. So two garage bands went a long way in six years.

Drummer Colin Bailey

Being British born, could you tell me why and in what year did you move to the U.S and who were the first musicians you worked with prior to you joining Guaraldi's trio?

 CB: I immigrated to Australia in 1958 and worked with some guys called the Australian Jazz quintet. They had spent some time in the U.S and upon their return to Australia they did a tour and then split up. The piano player and bassist then formed a quartet with me and a guitar player from Sydney. Will did a lot of gigs, did a recording and opened for the Kingston Trio. They were big at the time and we were the opening act. We got on well with the guys; they liked our music and invited us to the states for a six-weekend tour. So we went over there and when it was over I thought I'd have to go back to Australia but I was in some drum shop and the owner said Vince Guaraldi's on the line for you. He said he really liked my playing and would I join his trio. He fired the drummer Benny Barth, which I felt bad about but yeah, that was the start of it, that's how I got together with Vince. It was May of '61 I think.

How would you describe him as a person, musician and band leader? 

CB: Vince was a funny guy, he really was funny. He had a bit of a temper too. One night we were playing and myself and (bassist) Monty Budwig were mesmerised by the light flickering round on Alcatraz. All of a sudden we hear bang! and Vince had slammed down his piano lid and was shouting 'you two mother-f**kers sound like a couple of old ladies!'. But he was a beautiful guy and was great to me. I didn't have a car and so he'd pick me up and drop me home after the gig, I had an apartment near where he lived (in San Francisco). I liked Vince a lot, very funny sense of humour. We rehearsed every week round at his house and I only had one drum set so I'd have to haul it out of a club late at night and get it back to his for next day's rehearsal. We were always trying new material. He had a real knack for writing catchy tunes. The stuff he did for Charlie Brown were real catchy pieces. 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind' made him. The original recording of that is really good, but it was remixed and they screwed it up, it was too high and the bass was booming but the original is really good.

How long had you been working with Vince before the sessions for the Charlie Brown Christmas record?

CB: I joined Vince's band in I think May '61 and I get a call from Victor Feldman to go down and do some playing with him in Hollywood. Vince is a great piano player, a real swinging player but I just thought I had to do these gigs in L.A with Victor for the sake of my career really. So I did, and Vince was really good about it. I recorded with Joe Pass too. But I loved playing with Vince. When Monty (Budwig) left the band there was no bass player of his stature in San Francisco. A guy called Fred Marshall was pretty good was he wasn't great like Monty. That was another reason I decided to go to L.A and work with Victor Feldman. In fact, I did some great records with Victor, six all together but two were outstanding, It's a Wonderful World (1964) and in 1976, The Artful Dodger.

So for how long did you play with Vince's trio?

CB: From May of 61, to January '63. I then did two Charlie Brown things and also a special called It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

What do you remember about those sessions?

CB: Well it was 1965 and I had no idea who Charlie Brown was, I grew up in England. It was like ten in the morning and Vince said he'd written this music for Charlie Brown and it meant nothing to me! It wasn't until later on I got to know how important Charlie Brown, and how big it was over here. They still show the Christmas special every year and the soundtrack is still really popular. We did another Charlie Brown record (Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown, 1964) that featured a great piece called 'Pebble Beach'. The Christmas record was recorded in a studio in Glendale, L.A. I'd done some other sessions there, commercials and stuff and did the whole album in about four hours.

On release the original record was credited solely to Guaraldi and since there's been confusion to which musicians played on which tracks, why was this was and what tracks did you plays on?

CB: Yes, there's still some confusion. I can sometimes not tell who's playing what, whether it's me or (drummer) Jerry Granelli, but I played on most of it. What happened was we did a recording with Vince separate from the Charlie Brown session and it was really good but there was something in his playing on it that he didn't like. I did another album with Vince in the early '70s called Alma-ville.

What do you think it is about the CB Christmas record that appealed to so many and still continues to today?

CB: Well those tunes are sing-able, they are hum-able. Vince's writing could be real simple. Hip harmonies but simple melodically for the general public. It's funny, people think every Christmas I make money off that record but I don't make a cent, we were paid for the session and that was it.

His music for the Peanuts specials into the 1970s moved away from that of the traditional trio, what are your thoughts on Vince's venture in electric jazz?

CB: It wasn't my kind of stuff. I'd play on that other Charlie Brown album (Great Pumpkin) and I'd see Vince around and we remained friends but I didn't really care for the music he later made (into the 1970s) for the Charlie Brown specials. He changed, it wasn't Vince. I spent 12 or 13 years in the studio scene and I had to get out, I couldn't stand it anymore, I got tired of playing hard backbeats. The bass player that was with Vince later, Stuart Hamm, I worked with him in San Francisco. During a six night a week gig in a hotel close to San Francisco airport, he went to Vince's room looking for Vince who had failed to turn for the first set. There was no answer so had to get somebody to open the door and when they got in there Vince had died. He'd had an aneurism in the heart. We were so upset. We all spent so much time together.

What are your lasting memories of Vince?

CB: One thing I'll never forget is when 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind' became a huge hit and his income went from something like seven thousand to two-hundred and eighty thousand in one year and he was haunted by the tax people! That track really took off and a lot of people recorded it, but his version was the one. There was a series of TV shows in '62 by a jazz critic called Ralph J. Gleason Jazz Casual and we did a session with Ben Webster and Jimmy Witherspoon and it was pretty good. One track with the whole band is great and Vince plays this solo that's so hot you wouldn't believe it. Vince loved to play. He was in Woody Herman's band for a while too. He travelled a lot with many bands but he always wanted to get back to San Francisco.

Many thanks to Lee Mendelson and Colin Bailey for taking the time to contribute to this piece.