Pumpkin Jazz

Thanks to the long-awaited 2022 release of Guaraldi's soundtrack to It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, a few of the groups that mount annual Charlie Brown Christmas holiday shows have added similar performances to celebrate that Halloween album. It's a small list thus far, but they certainly deserve the same sort of shout-out ... and I'm sure more bands will follow in the future.

If I learn of any others in a timely fashion, I'll add them as an UPDATE, so you might want to check back every few days.

(I expect to post the annual Christmas performance list in mid-November.)

As for this debut Great Pumpkin list ... I gotta say, if you live in Illinois, you're about to have a great week!

• The Mich Shirey Trio, also known as Guitar for Guaraldi — Shirey, guitar; Nick Fane, bass; and Joey Buttlar, drums — will perform the music from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, along with other Guaraldi treats, on Thursday, October 24, at the Tack Room in Chicago, Illinois. Details.

• The Doug Ferdinand Quartet — Ferdinand, keyboards; Patrick Keelan, vibraphone; Colin O'Malley, bass; and Brendan Mack, drums — will perform the music from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Sunday, October 27, at the Blue Island Beer Company in Blue Island, Illinois. Details.

• The Chris White Quartet — White, piano; Greg Dudzienski, sax and flute; Sean Jacobi, bass; and Ryan Jacobi, drums — will perform the music from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Tuesday, October 29, at Hey Nonny in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Details.

• The Mich Shirey Trio, also known as Guitar for Guaraldi — Shirey, guitar; Nick Fane, bass; and David Kuchera drums — will perform the music from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, along with other Guaraldi treats, on Wednesday, October 30, at The Whistler in Chicago, Illinois. Details.

• The Chris White Quartet — White, piano; Greg Dudzienski, sax and flute; Sean Jacobi, bass; and Ryan Jacobi, drums — will perform the music from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Wednesday, October 30, at The Winters Jazz Club in Chicago, Illinois. Details.

Pass the drumstick!

With copies of Guaraldi's score for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving finally landing in the hands of eager fans who've literally waited — in some cases — half a century for this treasure, Sean and Jason Mendelson have been hitting the publicity trail.

Check out the following:

• Sean and Jason's impressively enthusiastic, 35-minutes October 12 visit to the Cereal at Midnight podcast;

• A brief October 13 album plug at Jazz Weekly;

• The New York Times' reader-submitted "Ultimate Fall Playlist," published October 13, with Guaraldi's "Great Pumpkin Waltz" first on the 14-track result (where it's the only instrumental);

• Sean Mendelson's lengthy, 40-minute focus on the vinyl edition, during this October 18 chat with WCB: Jazz Vinyl Collector; 

• This nifty CNN video plug, citing the album alongside new releases from the Rolling Stones and Nancy Sinatra ... a gathering of 1960s icons!

• Sean Mendelson's 25-minute interview about the album, during this November 8 Neon Jazz Interviews chat;

• The official Lee Mendelson Film Productions Inc. YouTube album playlist.

And a couple blasts from the past:

• Good Housekeepings's "50 Best Thanksgiving Songs for Your Turkey Day Playlist," updated back in November 2021, with Guaraldi's "Thanksgiving Theme" nicely slotted at No. 19; and

• Entertainment Weekly's "15 Essential Songs for Your Thanksgiving Playlist," published in November 2022. The last-place entry goes to Guaraldi's "Thanksgiving Theme." (Hey, it still made the list, right?) In both these cases, the tune now can be heard on its own soundtrack album.

Finally, for those who eschew physical media, links to four different sources that offer digital purchase/downloads of the Thanksgiving tracks. (Qobuz is a reliable seller of lossless downloads; Presto Music is known mostly as a shop for classical music, but they also offer soundtracks and jazz.)

(This isn't a definitive list, merely the most common sources.)

• Amazon (MP3) (click on "Purchase Options")

• Apple/iTunes (M4A) (may open automatically in Music app, or you may need to click the "open in Music" button)

• Qobuz (lossless download, high-res download)

• Presto Music (lossless or MP3 download)

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Finally, a brief acknowledgment of the holiday that comes before Thanksgiving...

Folks living in or near Chicago won't want to miss the Chris White Quartet's October 29 concerts at Winter's Jazz Club. Chris has been among the most ambitious of Guaraldi's torch-bearers; in addition to a busy annual schedule of Charlie Brown Christmas-themed shows — 23 this year! — in recent years he has branched out to include Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown Thanksgiving gigs ... along with a Latin-themed Guaraldi set in July 2022.

We love this guy!

Publicity galore!

(Please forgive the total lack of modesty in what follows. I'll try to keep the bubbling enthusiasm under control, but — really — this is new territory.)

The recent — and still upcoming — releases of the new-and-improved score for It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, along with the Super Deluxe five-disc collection of music and studio sessions for A Charlie Brown Christmas, have generated a wholly unexpected degree of interest from some high-profile web and print publications.

I suddenly found myself in demand as a "hot get" interview subject ... which is to say, folks came after me, rather than — as was the case when my Guaraldi biography was published, back in 2012 — my having to cold-call jazz radio stations across the country, hoping to find sympathetic DJs willing to plug the book.

To borrow a marvelous line from Chuck Mangione back in the day, when confronted by a massive sold-out venue that he couldn't have imagined, even a few years earlier: "Mother never said there'd be a day like this."

Taking them in publication order:

I had fun chatting with Tony Sokol, at Den of Geek; some of his questions were a bit silly and arch — as befits their style — but they were just as fun to answer, as his more serious queries.

Erik Adams, at Indiewire, probed deep into the back-story of It's the Great Pumpkin, and he emerged with one of the best-researched, engaging and superbly written stories I've ever encountered.

Next up was something I didn't even realize was on my bucket list, until it occurred: Getting interviewed by Variety was an honor all by itself. The fact that the interviewer was Jon Burlingame — The Man, when it comes to soundtrack history and analysis, and author of numerous books including TV's Biggest Hits, The Music of James Bond, and the upcoming Music for Prime Time (all of which I own, or will own) — was akin to getting an audience with the Dalai Lama. Like, wow...

On a more local level, I shared microphones with Sean and Jason Mendelson for a captivating episode of the public affairs radio show Davisville, hosted by Bill Buchanan. (It's a shame the show couldn't have expanded to include the lively chatter before and after taping, which was just as entertaining and informative.)

And Fate had one more surprise in store. When I received the LP copies of Great Pumpkin and the double-disc Charlie Brown Christmas highlights, I was astonished to see that the promotional sticker, attached to the plastic wrap, cited me for the liner notes. How often does that happen?

My understanding is that one more major publicity/promotional event will live-stream toward the end of this month. Stay tuned...

This definitely isn't a rock!

I've been sitting on this information since December.

Craft Recordings went public with the news today, which makes it fair game for this blog.

As I describe in my fresh liner notes, this is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: the sigh of rapturous satisfaction from Guaraldi fans who for decades believed — nay, insisted — that original Great Pumpkin recording session tapes must exist. Somewhere.

(Yes, I had to borrow a note from one of Charles Schulz's most famous quotes: With this set of liner notes, I had to write the same thing without repeating myself. You can tell me whether I succeeded.)

I guess we can thank Covid.

Assuming one managed to escape getting sick, pandemic-enforced isolation had a few benefits, such as encouraging some of us to finally tackle massive, long-postponed projects of one sort or another. Honestly, what else were we able to do with our time?

The folks over at Lee Mendelson Film Productions spent a year and change spelunking in the darkest corners of their voluminous archives. Marvelous Guaraldi artifacts — some believed lost forever — were unearthed.

This is the first.

Craft's official announcement includes quite a lot of detail, so check it out.

Craft also released a short promo video, which can be seen here. (And I was pleasantly surprised by the shout-out.)

This release actually is better than we could have hoped for, because it includes a number of alternate takes ... and, yes, full-length versions of iconic Peanuts themes heard only partially during the TV special.

"The Great Pumpkin Waltz" (Alternate Take 2) can be heard on various digital platforms, including YouTube.

Barring supply-chain issues, all formats should be available on August 26.

The sole vexing note is that the cover of this new release is almost identical to its inferior 2018 predecessor; fans will need to be extremely careful — particularly with online orders — when purchasing a copy. Yes, the 2022 copyright date is helpful; and yes, the presence of the aforementioned alternates takes, in the track list, is a giveaway. But the quickest distinction is that the 2018 release is called "Music from the soundtrack" (above the album title), whereas the 2022 release is an "Original soundtrack recording."

Even so, I do fear that some casual buyers may not look that closely.

To anticipate the obvious next question, yes, there may be more to come. The Mendelson vaults have yet to be fully archived, and future plans also will depend upon this release's sales (so tell all of your friends and family members to buy one!).

Meanwhile, Linus would be pleased: The Great Pumpkin really did show up this time!

UPDATE 8/26: Although CDs are "in the world" as of today, the street date of the vinyl versions has been bumped back to September 9.

Credits where due

By now, most avid fans know that all existing copies of A Charlie Brown Christmas, going back half a century — whether broadcast on television; or purchased on VHS, DVD or Blu-ray, or from iTunes and other such sources; or streamed — are absent the title credits acknowledgment of Coca-Cola's sponsorship. The credits now conclude after Snoopy blanket-whips Charlie Brown into a tree, with a vocal chorus of "Christmas Time Is Here" fading into silence rather abruptly.

But television viewers back in 1965 — and during the 1966 re-broadcast — got a bit more; Snoopy then blanket-whips Linus into a sign that reads, "Brought to you by the people in your town who bottle Coca-Cola." We also get a more reasonable fade of the song.

Perhaps a bit less well known is the fact that the same thing happens during the end credits, which — in all existing prints — conclude after acknowledging director/producer Lee Mendelson, animator Bill Melendez, and United Feature Syndicate; the gang's cheerful delivery of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" similarly fades rather abruptly. We no longer see the final title card, which reads "Merry Christmas, from the people who bottle Coca-Cola." And, needless to say, the song concludes properly.

Happily, these artifacts have been resurrected by intrepid Internet elves; they can be seen here and here.

Ah, but how many of you know that such shenanigans also compromised the next two Peanuts specials?

After Charlie Brown drops the high fly ball during the opening sequence of Charlie Brown's All-Stars, he dejectedly walks along a fence that credits Charles M. Schulz; he pushes a board up, to walk through the fence ... and that's all we see these days, as the music fades. But the sequence continues for another 10 seconds, as — now on the other side of the fence — poor Chuck trudges past signs that credit Coca-Cola and co-sponsor Dolly Madison Cakes. Check it out here.

(One suspects similar co-sponsor acknowledgments in the end credits, but — if true — they've yet to surface.)

The long-absent bits from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are even more fun. In all existings versions of this special, the title credits and music fade out after acknowledging Schulz, as an owl flies directly toward the screen. Ah, but the original sequence continues for an additional 17 delightful seconds: first crediting Coca-Cola via a scarecrow, as the panicked gang flees behind it; and then Dolly Madison Cakes, as Snoopy dances atop a pumpkin. Again, the conclusion of Guaraldi's title theme is much more satisfying, as can be seen (and heard) here.

Existing end credits conclude after acknowledging Mendelson, Melendez and United Feature Syndicate; the musical fade is quite abrupt and clumsy. But the infuriated Linus continues to berates Charlie Brown for another 10 seconds, during which Dolly Madison and Coca-Cola are acknowledged ... and, more crucially for us Guaraldi fans, his perky arrangement of "Charlie Brown Theme" comes to a proper conclusion. Check it out here.

I believe this practice ceased when the next special, You're in Love, Charlie Brown, came along in June 1967; by this point, fewer shows and specials were being sponsored by just one or two entities. But I won't be certain until somebody verifies having seen an archival copy of that original broadcast.

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Speaking of A Charlie Brown Christmas, did sharp-eared viewers of the recent Marvel Universe series Hawkeye catch the use of the Guaraldi Trio's "Christmas Time Is Here"? The holiday-themed storyline included quite a few Christmas songs in each episode; Guaraldi's tune — the vocal version, sung by Charlie Brown and his friends — is the first heard in the fifth episode, "Ronin." it begins at 13:40, as Clint walks New York City's late-night streets to Grills' apartment, and continues for about 30 seconds while Grills welcomes him inside.

Needless to say, those showrunners have superb taste in music!

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Shortly after this blog's previous post, the folks at Lee Mendelson Film Productions added seven more online folios of Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts themes. I supplemented the original list, but of course that post wasn't sent a second time via email, so you wouldn't necessarily know about the additions. Ergo, this is fresh notification that these titles have been added:

• "Bon Voyage"

• "It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown"

• "Charlie Brown's Wake-Up"

• "Charlie Brown's All-Stars"

• "Sassy Sally"

• "Schroeder's Wolfgang"

• "Woodstock's Dream"

You'll find links within the previous post. 

Vinyl madness 2021

Well, they clearly see us coming.

The "vinyl variants" of A Charlie Brown Christmas must be selling quite well each holiday season, because this promotional gimmick has been going strong since 2015. By my count, we've seen slightly more than two dozen, with more to come this year.

I'm curious ... has anybody reading this blog faithfully purchased all of them? If so, let me know; I'd love to acknowledge your devotion.

Anyway...

The fun begins this year in an unexpected manner, with Craft's (believe it or not) pumpkin-shaped orange vinyl edition of its recently issued soundtrack for It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It's expected to ship September 17. (I'm pleased to see they found a clever way to include the liner notes I wrote for that release.)

Moving on to A Charlie Brown Christmas, Wal-Mart's offering -- a red glitter vinyl disc packaged in silver foil -- is available now:

Barnes & Noble will offer an exclusive limited-edition picture disc, packaged in silver foil, and with an embossed jacket, expected to be available on October 1:

Urban Outfitters is unleashing a clear vinyl disc with red and green splatters, also scheduled for October 1 (Actually, this is merely new packaging; it's the same "exclusive LP" as 2020, but in a foil sleeve instead of last year's lenticular sleeve):

Target has a metallic gold swirl vinyl, along with a new art poster. It's also available now:

And you have to love the peppermint vinyl soon to be available from RSD Essentials, due out October 15:

Newbury Comics also will unveil their variant on October 15, with green swirl vinyl:

Craft will hit us with a "glitter-infused clear vinyl" LP, scheduled for October 1. But I can't help quoting the caveat the label includes, in the description of this one: "Please note that vinyl additives such as glitter may, but should not, affect sound quality." 

Is this what we've come to? "Exclusive" LPs that aren't (necessarily) designed to be played?

Anyway...

In addition to these vinyl variants, numerous retailers also will offer the standard LP — which is to say, plain black vinyl — in a "silver foil" edition with the foil "wrapped" onto the outer sleeve, and the Peanuts characters embossed. This short video gives a better sense of how that will look, than any of the still photos I've found.

And here's a late entry from vinylmeplease.com, in "red and green marble vinyl" ... although -- be advised -- the price point on this one is much higher than the others.

This is all I know about at the moment, but it's entirely possible that one or more other outlets will jump on board, as autumn arrives. If so, I'll add them to this post ... so keep checking back.

A little of this, a little of that: Summer 2019

Guaraldi's pop-culture relevance continues to shine...

The Marvel TV series Legion featured two of his Peanuts tracks on the current third (and final) season's second episode, simply titled "Chapter 21." (Mind you, given the show's deliberately outré weirdness, it's impossible to know why the tunes were used.)

Toward the beginning, the soundtrack featured the seldom-heard vocal version of "Oh, Good Grief." Later into the episode, the Shadow King is shown at the piano, playing "Christmas Time Is Here" ... although the backing combo was nowhere to be seen. (As Guaraldi fan Rob pointed out, the lighting was quite moody, so maybe they were hidden behind a pillar somewhere.)

Given this show's target audience, I can't help wondering if most viewers even recognized one or both tunes...

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Following last autumn's CD debut of Guaraldi's score for It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown -- details available in this earlier post -- Concord's Craft Recordings division has announced the upcoming release of vinyl versions. Note that -- as has become custom these days -- various retailers will have uniquely different versions.

According to Concord's press release...

On the eve of Vince Guaraldi being honored with the National Music Council's American Eagle Award -- details here -- Craft Recordings celebrates his 91st birthday by announcing the vinyl edition of his music for It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, scheduled for release on August 30. The disc will include the iconic pumpkin as an etching on side B. The package also includes an introduction from the TV special’s executive producer, Lee Mendelson, and insightful liner notes by Derrick Bang, Peanuts historian and author of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.

A special limited edition (500 copies only) -- pressed on a glow-in-the-dark vinyl -- will be available exclusively at the Craft Recordings Store.

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: Music from the Soundtrack features some of the most iconic tracks in pop culture, including the instantly recognizable “Linus and Lucy,” as well as the languid, lyrical “Great Pumpkin Waltz.” The music was recorded on October 4, 1966, at Desilu’s Gower Street Studio in Hollywood, California, by Guaraldi (piano) and his longtime friends and trio sidemen -- bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey -- joined by Emanuel Klein (trumpet), John Gray (guitar) and Ronald Lang (woodwinds). 

“This is the quintessential Vince Guaraldi for our Peanuts specials ... some of his best atmospheric jazz,” Mendelson notes. “Vince’s score carries the gang with the autumn leaves, through the scary and cold Halloween night. This music comforts the indomitable faith of Linus, still waiting for his hero since 1966: forever in our ears, hearts and memories.”

“Guaraldi had a strong sense of how music could -- and should -- be employed to maximize the viewing audience’s emotional response,” writes Bang. “[He] emphatically established the Peanuts ‘musical personality’ with this third outing, and all subsequent prime-time specials owed much to the groovin’ atmosphere that is so prevalent in Great Pumpkin. Guaraldi had a gig for life ... and his legacy lives on, expand[ing] by the year, thanks in great part to the jazz swagger given to an insecure blockhead and his lovably crazy beagle.”

This announcement comes on the anniversary of Guaraldi’s birthday (born July 17, 1928). We honor a real-life Schroeder, who through his music introduced generation after generation to the beauty of the distinctly American artform of jazz.

Treat or trick?

UPDATE 6/16/22: This album has been superseded by a vastly superior 2022 release of this TV special's score; full details can be read in this post. The key takeaway: Buy the 2022 version, not this one!

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I've had to keep mum about this, since initially getting involved back in early May. That's when Concord/Craft asked if I'd be willing to write fresh liner notes for an upcoming release of the score for the Peanuts television special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

(As if I'd have declined...!)

The assignment was a delightful excuse to once again probe the evolution of Guaraldi's efforts for the third prime-time Peanuts special, this time adding a few additional details that have come to light since my book was published.

Unfortunately, as has become clear from audio samples posted at the Varese Sarabande website and CraftRecordings' Instagram site, Concord/Craft did not have access to any of Guaraldi's original studio tapes, which we can assume contained takes that were far longer than what was edited into the TV special. (This lends weight to my long-standing fear that such tapes no longer exist.) These samples indicate that this new CD is built from a "baked" music-and-effects track; in other words, this disc's individual tracks will feature music only as it is heard in the animated special, with short edits, fades and some abrupt stops ... along with sound effects. The re-mastering certainly will enhance the audio quality, but there's no question that the listening experience will be compromised by the sound effects "clutter."

By definition, the CD also will be brief. Assuming every single note is included, the 17 tracks will run somewhere between 19 and 20 minutes.

I'll turn the rest of this post over to the Concord/Craft press release:

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One of the most sought-after soundtracks in the beloved collection of music from the iconic Peanuts animated TV specials, It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, is being made available for the first time ever on Friday, October 5, via Craft Recordings. Featuring music by Grammy Award-winning composer/performer Vince Guaraldi, the CD package includes a new introduction from the TV show's executive producer, Lee Mendelson, along with insightful liner notes by Derrick Bang, Peanuts historian and author of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Music from the Soundtrack) features some of the most iconic tracks in pop culture, including the instantly recognizable "Linus and Lucy," as well as the languid, lyrical "Great Pumpkin Waltz." The music was recorded on October 4, 1966, at Desilu's Gower Street Studio in Hollywood, California, by Guaraldi (piano) and his longtime friends and trio sidemen - bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey - joined by Emanuel Klein (trumpet), John Gray (guitar) and Ronald Lang (woodwinds). The entire scoring process was overseen by composer, arranger and conductor John Scott Trotter, well-known for a three-decade run as Bing Crosby's music director and close friend.

Following the astounding popularity of Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip and the first two successful Peanuts television specials -- A Charlie Brown Christmas and Charlie Brown's All-Stars -- It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown debuted October 27, 1966, with a phenomenal 49 percent audience share, meaning 49 percent of the people watching television during those 30 minutes had tuned in to see Charlie Brown.

"This is the quintessential Vince Guaraldi for our Peanuts specials ... some of his best atmospheric jazz," Mendelson shares. "Vince's score carries the gang with the autumn leaves, through the scary and cold Halloween night. This music comforts the indomitable faith of Linus, still waiting for his hero since 1966: forever in our ears, hearts and memories."

"Guaraldi had a strong sense of how music could -- and should -- be employed to maximize the viewing audience's emotional response," writes Bang. "[He] emphatically established the Peanuts 'musical personality' with this third outing, and all subsequent prime-time specials owed much to the groovin' atmosphere that is so prevalent in Great Pumpkin. Guaraldi had a gig for life ... and his legacy lives on, expand[ing] by the year, thanks in great part to the jazz swagger given to an insecure blockhead and his lovably crazy beagle."

Track listing:

1. Linus and Lucy
2. Graveyard Theme
3. Snoopy and the Leaf/Frieda (With the Naturally Curly Hair)
4. The Great Pumpkin Waltz
5. Linus and Lucy (Reprise)
6. Charlie Brown Theme/Happy Linus
7. The Great Pumpkin Waltz (Reprise)
8. The Red Baron/Military Drum March
9. The Great Pumpkin Waltz (2nd Reprise)
10. Trick or Treat
11. Fanfare/Breathless/Trick or Treat (Reprise)
12. Charlie Brown Theme (Reprise)
13. Breathless
14. It's a Long Way to Tipperary/There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding/Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag/Roses of Picardy
15. Trick or Treat (2nd Reprise)
16. Linus and Lucy (2nd Reprise)
17. Charlie Brown Theme (2nd Reprise)

It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown can be pre-ordered via Amazon or the Craft Recordings Web Store, or copies will be available October 5 at your local indie record store.