“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” – Vince Guaraldi Trio
By Marie
Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody “Linus and Lucy” and the holiday standard “Christmas Time Is Here”.
You can’t help but sing along with the perfectly imperfect voices on this nostalgic track from A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Guaraldi used a variety of sidemen throughout his career. His main preference was playing as a trio, although this number would increase depending on the needs of a song, live performance or Peanuts soundtrack.
The original Vince Guaraldi Trio consisted of Dean Reilly (bass) and Eddie Duran (guitar), appearing on Guaraldi’s first two albums. The second lineup, considered the first of two “classic” trios, featured Monty Budwig (bass) and Colin Bailey (drums).
This version of the classic trio appeared on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus and Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown. The second of two classic trios featured Fred Marshall (bass) and Jerry Granelli (drums).
This incarnation was featured on more albums than any other trio, including Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete and Friends, Jazz Casual: Paul Winter/Bola Sete and Vince Guaraldi, The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, From All Sides and A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Despite the wealth of Peanuts material Guaraldi recorded, only A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Boy Named Charlie Brown (both the unaired documentary and feature film) received official soundtrack releases during his lifetime.
“I have always felt that one of the key elements that made A Charlie Brown Christmas was the music,” said Mendelson in 2010.
He continued, “It gave it a contemporary sound that appealed to all ages. Although Vince had never scored anything else and although I was basically a documentary film-maker at the time, we started to work together on the cues because we both loved jazz and we both played the piano.”
So he would bring in the material for each scene and we would go over it scene by scene. Most of the time, the music worked perfectly. But there were times we would either not use something or use it somewhere else. We went through this same process on all sixteen shows. Although there was always some leftover music, most of the time what he wrote and performed is what went on the air,” he added.