Rating:
Genre:
Jazz
Release Date: 08/19/2003
While many consider
Vince Guaraldi's musical contributions to the
Charlie Brown television cartoons to be
jazz "lite," there are many more who could care less what they think, and there are still more who realize that the late
Mr. Guaraldi was a first-rate composer who understood no bounds when it came to creative music. His recordings for
Black Orpheus and his sessions with
Cal Tjader and
Bola Sete reveal a restless musical mind that was far more interested in the nuance of
jazz possibility than street credibility. This
Bluebird set, comprising the entire 40-minute, seven-section
"Charlie Brown Suite," was recorded live at
Mr. D's, a famous
jazz club in San Francisco, in 1968. This performance has been unearthed from more than 80 hours of unreleased
Guaraldi material in an estate looked after by his son, who, along with producer
Dawn Atkinson, assembled the tapes for remastering and release for the first time ever. Accompanying
Mr. Guaraldi are his own trio and
the Amici Della Music Ensemble under the direction of
Richard Williams. While audience and bandstand noise is present, so is musical whimsy bordering on genius. The seemingly simple harmonics and snappy melodies that comprised the
Charlie Brown pieces are merely the springboard for dizzying, dreamy, and rhythmically advanced, sophisticated composition and arrangement. These seven pieces are, in their way, one of the great treasures in American music and haunted by childlike
nursery rhymes while being saturated in
jazz; they comprise something unique in the vernacular and are a sheer, warm delight for virtually anyone but the most snobbish and harmonically challenged to listen to. Fans of vanguard
jazz and "new" music only need not apply, this is over your head (after all, it has heart and emotion). In addition to the suite, there are three other unique pieces: the original mixes of
"Linus & Lucy With Band" and
"The Charlie Brown Theme" recorded at
Wally Heider's -- the latter complete with harpsichord solo -- and a unique, live, longer version of
Guaraldi's hit
"Cast Our Fate to the Wind." What all this adds up to is an amazing package that has come from out of the blue to enrich the catalog of one of the great unsung compositional masters in American music.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
;)
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