For fans of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi and Guaraldi’s celebrated score for the timeless TV special that begat a Peanuts franchise on the tube, Christmas came early this year with the Craft Recordings release of the Super Deluxe Edition of Guaraldi’s six-times-platinum soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas. This four-CD/one Blu-ray audio box set offers an inside, in-depth look at the jazz pianist’s compositional process in the studio as he and his trio develop the songs now so familiar and indelibly etched into each year’s Yuletide culture.
Thanks to newly discovered sessions tapes in the Fantasy Records vaults, we can hear how “Christmas Time is Here,” “O Tannenbaum,” “Christmas is Coming,” “Greensleeves” and “The Christmas Song” arrived in their final form. A listener can go down a rabbit hole with these tantalizing tidbits—the studio chatter between Guaraldi and his combo, the starts and stops and ideas revised on the fly as the different takes coalesce into seasonal evergreens. Perhaps only fanatics care that “Christmas Time is Coming” had a more pronounced bossa nova strain in its earliest incarnations and other takes close with long, freeform vamps. Maybe only fanatics care that the earliest versions of “The Christmas Song” contained several Brahms and Bach ornamentation or that the early take of “Skating” veers off into a swinging, improvisational segment, whereas other takes come to a screeching halt after a few bars as Guaraldi makes subtle adjustments and begins again. These are the revelations of the Super Deluxe, four-CD/one Blu-ray audio collection box set (also available as an 80-track digital collection). The original 11-track soundtrack album is included in a new stereo mix from the original two- and three-track sources by Grammy winning engineer Paul Blakemore (both the original mix and this new mix are included in the package). Originally priced around $100, it was, as of this writing, available on Amazon for around $75. Too pricey? Too much information? There’s a Deluxe Edition, available in two-LP and two-CD formulations, that includes the new stereo mix and 13 of the studio outtakes. For collectors, Craft Recordings has issued a Gold Foil Edition, a one-time-only vinyl version (available in colored variants) with the original album jacket wrapped in gold foil. Of course, the simple original soundtrack on one CD remains available in a 2012 remixed, expanded edition that includes three tracks not included on the 1965 album: “Greensleeves,” “Great Pumpkin Waltz” and “Thanksgiving Theme,” all for $10.
‘Skating,’ written by Vince Guaraldi, performed by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, for A Charlie Brown Christmas
Apart from the music, the set comes with a 59-page hardcover book with new liner notes by Peanuts historian Derrick Bang (author of the only Guaraldi biography to date, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano), rare photos, session notes, samples of Peanuts animation from Charles Schulz and other treats.
Deep Roots readers can avail themselves of our in-depth account of Guaraldi’s masterful score and the making of A Charlie Brown Christmas (the latter in an excerpt from producer Lee Mendelson’s book, A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Making of a Tradition). Originally published in The Bluegrass Special.com, the feature “Sublime & Swingin'” is now in Deep Roots and available for your reading pleasure here.
