Music of Charlie Brown Christmas returns
It has sold millions, influenced countless musicians, and is among the most beloved Christmas music ever made.
But to Niagara pianist Peter Shea, there’s another reason Vince Guaraldi’s classic soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas is important: It’s often the first jazz music young people ever hear.
“It’s the only cartoon to my knowledge where the entire underscore is jazz music,” says Shea, who co-founded the Niagara Jazz Festival with singer/wife Juliet Dunn five years ago.
“People are afraid of the word ‘jazz,’ but if you say ‘Peanuts music,’ they go, ‘Oh, I love that music.’ They don’t think of the word jazz. For some people, it conjures up images of being elitist, or big long solos.
“There’s something special about what Vince Guaraldi composed. It wasn’t just that he was playing jazz … those compositions, there’s something timeless about them. Can you imagine Charlie Brown without that music? It would never be the same.”
On Wednesday, Shea joins an all-star ensemble to perform Guaraldi’s music for the second straight year at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre. Last year’s show sold out the 770-seat Partridge Hall, with 400 people on a waiting list.
This year’s show gets an added boost with drummer Terry Clarke, who performed with Guaraldi in the ’60s before joining The Fifth Dimension. It gives the concert a direct link to the man whose music defines the season for many.
“There’s a real piece of history there,” says Shea. “Terry’s one of our national treasures. He was a drummer with Oscar Peterson for many years, and many other giants of jazz. He’s played with them all.
“I can’t wait to hear his stories. He has a personal connection to Vince Guaraldi, that’s what impresses me the most.”
Gerald, who died in 1976, recorded a mix of originals (Christmas Time is Here, Linus and Lucy) to go with jazzy versions of Christmas staples (O Tannenbaum, The Christmas Song) for the soundtrack, which was released a week before the special aired on CBS on Dec. 9, 1965. Sales were decent, but it became a perennial seller decades later. It’s now among the top 10 bestselling Christmas albums in the U.S. with more than four million copies sold.
“It’s a nostalgic trip for most people, and it bridges generations,” says Shea.
Joining Shea and Clarke will be Clark Johnson on bass, special guest James Bryan on guitar, and The Jazz 4 The Ages Youth Competition winners Sydney Bergen and Ben MacDonald.