Vince Guaraldi

Vince Guaraldi redid Peanuts songs for this jazz pop hybridhttps://t.co/nTCRjMG6Jr@Jazzigator@Snoopy@PopWrapped pic.twitter.com/02jxVW0QG0

— bro ken (@anarchopeacenik) July 17, 2016

Vince Guaraldi

BIRTHDAY: Jazz Musician of the Day: Vince Guaraldi https://t.co/zmYKk7OKB6 #Jazzigator.com

— Jazzigator (@Jazzigator) July 17, 2016

Vince Guaraldi at the Piano by Derrick Bang

Steven A. Cerra
"When I met him, he immediately liked the feeling I had, even though I wasn't experienced. So I would go to his house for lessons, whenever he was available: once a week or so. We would listen to music, and then talk about it, and then he'd show me things: harmonies of tunes, and changes.

"A lesson would take place at the keyboard: He would improvise and play single lines, like bebop lines. I would listen, and then I would ask about chords and stuff. Vince didn't have a system of different exercises; he just did it by playing for me.

"The other part of a lesson — the important part — was listening to records by the great players: Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Art Tatum and Lester Young ... always the masters. We'd listen and then talk about the music. One time he played an album by Los Angeles bebop pianist Hampton Hawes, and Vince said, 'You and I have this feeling, and a lot of players don't get it.' - Larry Vuckovich, Vince Guaraldi’s former student and Jazz pianist [Emphasis mine]

"Vince was a very positive player. I don't know if that can be analyzed. The rhythmic component obviously is part of it, and the fact that he created melodies that tended to be sunny, not neutral or morose. But also, you can sense a musician's personality and attitude when they're playing,and anybody who hears most of Vince's music will sense a positive quality. He was a good, solid musician. Anybody who listens to his music 50 years from now will appreciate it for the same things we appreciate it for today. He wanted to be a success, in a very profound way, and to be remembered for the happy quality of his music. He succeeded." - Doug Ramsey, Jazz author, essayist and blogger

 "I enjoyed everything we ever played; it felt great every night. I dug Vince's playing; he was a swinging piano player, and he made it feel really good. I could hear a little Bud Powell influence, and a little Red Garland influence, but Vince had his own style. If somebody put one of his records on, I could always tell it was Vince. He had a distinct style, that's for sure; it was the way he'd do the phrasing and the chord changes on his solos. He was very rhythmic, and he swung so hard.” - Colin Bailey, Jazz drummer

In the span of a few months, two of my favorite Jazz musicians who have been gone from the Jazz scene for many years suddenly “reappeared” in my life.

Both were based in San Francisco, CA but each developed national recognition through their concerts club appearances and recordings. Some of their earliest success in the music came while working together.

The first to make their “presence” felt again was vibraphonist, percussionist and bandleader, Cal Tjader, in S. Duncan Reid’s excellent biography: Cal Tjader: The Life and Recordings of the Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz. Duncan’s work is published by McFarland and Company. Here’s a link to my review of the book.

And now, along comes Derrick Bang’s Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, also published by McFarland. Order information about Derrick’s book can be located via this link.

A professional writer and editor for many years, Derrick has specialized in writing about the work of Charles Schultz, the late cartoonist who created the Peanuts strip.


In talking with Derrick by phone, I gathered that like many others, he was adversely affected by the employment meltdown that followed the Great Recession of 2008. I closed my consultancy as a consequence of it and retired.

read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2015/08/vince-guaraldi-at-piano-by-derrick-bang.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)

Vince Guaraldi and Charlie Brown

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

The roots of American post-war snark probably date back to October 2, 1950. On that date, Charles M. Schulz's Peanutscomic strip began to be syndicated by Universal, and Charlie Brown, the strip's protagonist, began evolving as an upbeat punching bag for a range of edgy characters ranging from a know-it-all girl to a wiseguy dog. Schulz had shrewdly tapped into the social network of pre-teens and its pecking order, capturing the youthful chiding of all things straight and narrow and providing the virtual diary entries of adolescent eccentrics. [Photo above of Vince Guaraldi]

By 1963. Schulz's strip had become hugely popular among 60 million readers, thanks largely to a growing number of Baby Boomers who favored the strip's simplicity and paucity of words. By contrast, Dondi, another popular strip featuring a bewildered kid, was gloomy and dense with illustration and narration. Peanuts was adult-free, and its characters operated at a safe distance from grown-up stresses, perils and, later in 1963, assassination. [Picture above of Charles Schulz]

That year, Schulz and his business colleagues decided it was time to consider television, which was fast becoming popular with Boomers, particularly on Saturday mornings. So the team moved forward with A Boy Named Charlie Brown, a 60-minute documentary meant to introduce Schulz and his characters to television executives. But before the film was wrapped, Schulz and Bill Melendez—the only illustrator Schulz trusted to transform his newspaper characters into prime-time stars—produced their first half-hour animated special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, which eventually aired for the first time on CBS on December 9, 1965.

On the adult side of the Charlie Brown equation, the French film Black Orpheus was released in 1959 and became a critical success. As was the case with many hit shows and movies at the time, a jazz version of the music was recorded by pianist Vince Guaraldi, aptly titled Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. One of the songs Guaraldi wrote was Cast Your Fate to the Wind.

In 1964, Lee Mendelson, producer of A Charlie Brown  Christmas, was crossing San Franciso's Golden Gate Bridge in a cab when he heard the Guaraldi single on the radio. A call to Ralph J. Gleason [above], the San Francisco Chronicle's jazz columnist, led to Guaraldi. Mendelson, who liked the swinging ease of Guarldi's sound, suggested he score the upcoming TV holiday special. Guaraldi wisely agreed, joining a franchise that would last decades. Guaraldi's music  became Charlie Brown's heartbeat and inextricably linked to the TV specials.

But first things first. The documentary needed music, so Guaraldi wrote songs for the film. But when it became apparent that the documentary wouldn't be released (there was no longer a need for it), Fantasy produced Guaraldi and his trio playing Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown in 1964. Naturally, the album primed the adult pump for A Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

The Guaraldi album has just been remastered and reissued by Concord and features Guaraldi at the dawn of his Charlie Brown involvement. Other than Linus and Lucy, the album is largely free of Brownish theme music. It's a jazz trio playing mostly originals, with Monty Budwig on bass and Colin Bailey on drums. And unlike many of the Charlie Brown holiday-themed albums, which always come with a heavy dose of nostalgia, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is breezy, funky jazz with a light foot. No matter how you feel about Charlie Brown, this album is like a Calder sculpture—sophisticated and playful.

JazzWax tracks: A Boy Named Charlie Brown (Concord) —originally entitled Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown, plus two previously unreleased tracks—can be foundhere. The documentary mentioned above is available only through the Charles M. Schulz Museum here.

JazzWax clip: Here's a clip from A Boy Named Charlie Brown, a documentary on Charles M. Schulz...

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Vince Guaraldi

A Few Words about Dr. Funk

By Derrick Bang
Like most so-called overnight successes, Vincent Anthony Guaraldi -- who forever described himself as "a reformed boogie-woogie piano player" -- worked hard for his big break. The man eventually dubbed "Dr. Funk" by his compatriots was born in San Francisco on July 17, 1928; he graduated from Lincoln High School and then San Francisco State College. Guaraldi began performing while in college, haunting sessions at the Black Hawk and Jackson's Nook, sometimes with the Chubby Jackson/Bill Harris band, other times in combos with Sonny Criss and Bill Harris. He played weddings, high school concerts, and countless other small-potatoes gigs.

His first serious booking came at the Black Hawk, when he worked as an intermission pianist ... filling in for the legendary Art Tatum. "It was more than scary", Guaraldi later recalled. "I came close to giving up the instrument, and I wouldn't have been the first after working with Tatum". Guaraldi's first recorded work can be heard on "Vibratharpe", a 1953 release by the Cal Tjader Trio. Guaraldi then avoided studios for the next few years, preferring to further hone his talents in the often unforgiving atmosphere of San Francisco's beatnik club scene.

In 1955 he put together his own trio -- longtime friend Eddie Duran on guitar, Dean Reilly on bass -- and tackled North Beach's bohemian hungry i club. He also returned to studio work that year, making his recorded debut as group leader, although with different personnel: John Markham (drums), Eugene Wright (bass) and Jerry Dodgion (alto sax). What soon came to be recognized as the "Guaraldi sound", however, resulted from several recording sessions with his hungry i buddies. The original Vince Guaraldi Trio, with Duran and Reilly, can be heard on two releases: "The Vince Guaraldi Trio" (1956) and "A Flower is a Lonesome Thing" (1957)

The late 50s were a busy time. Aside from studio sessions with Conte Candoli (two albums), Frank Rosolino (one album), and Cal Tjader (at least ten albums), Guaraldi toured in 1956 with Woody Herman's third "Thundering Herd", replacing Nat Pierce on piano for one season. Not too much later, just after midnight during 1958's first annual Monterey Jazz Festival, some 6,000 rabid but by now quite tired jazz fans came to their feet when The Cal Tjader Quintet blew them away.

Thanks in no small part to the "sound of surprise" from the feisty Guaraldi, whose extended blues riffs literally had the crowd screaming for more, Tjader's quintet received an enthusiastic standing ovation. .National prominence was just around the corner. Inspired by the 1959 French/Portuguese film "Black Orpheus", Guaraldi hit the studio with a new trio -- Monte Budwig on bass, Colin Bailey on drums -- and recorded his own interpretations of Antonio Carlos Jobim's haunting soundtrack music. The 1962 album was called "Jazz Impression of Black Orpheus", and "Samba de Orpheus" was the first selection released as a single.

Combing the album for a suitable B-side number, Guaraldi's producers finally ghettoized a modest original composition titled "Cast Your Fate to the Wind". Fortunately, some enterprising Sacramento, California DJs turned the single over......and the rest is history.

"Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a Gold Record winner and earned the 1963 Grammy as Best Instrumental Jazz Composition. It was constantly demanded during Guaraldi's club engagements, and suddenly jazz fans couldn't get enough of him. He responded with several albums during 1963 and '64, perhaps the most important of which was "Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete, and Friends", with Fred Marshall (bass), Jerry Granelli (drums) and Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete. That marked the first of several collaborations with Sete, a musical collaboration whose whole was greater than the sum of its already quite talented parts.

Guaraldi was also a recognized fixture on television, if only in the greater San Francisco region. He and jazz critic Ralph Gleason documented the success of"Cast Your Fate to the Wind" in the three-part "Anatomy of a Hit", produced for San Francisco's KQED; later, shortly after his first album with Sete, Guaraldi did a "Jazz Casual" TV show for the same network.

The most prestigious task, however, was yet to come. Even before Duke Ellington played San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, that venerable institution's Reverend Charles Gompertz selected Guaraldi to write a modern jazz setting for the choral Eucharist. The composer labored18 months with his trio and a 68-voice choir, and the result is an impressive blend of Latin influences, waltz tempos, and traditional jazz "supper music". It was performed live on May 21, 1965, and the album became another popular and critical hit. Clearly, if Vince Guaraldi could write music for God, he could pen tunes for Charlie Brown.

The jazz pianist's association with Charles Schulz's creations actually had begun the year before, when Guaraldi was hired to score the first Peanuts television special, adocumentary called"A Boy Named Charlie Brown " (not to be confused with the big- screen feature of the same title). The show brought together four remarkable talents: Schulz, writer/producer/director Lee Mendelson, artist Bill Melendez and Guaraldi.
* http://www.vinceguaraldi.com/biography1.htm
* A much longer version of this article, originally written in 1993, can be found at  www.peanutscollectorclub.com/guaraldi)