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Top Ten Christmas Jazz Recordings Of All-Time

By Ken Hohman

While moldy Christmas songs and great jazz seem as compatible as egg nog and Tanqueray, there have been instances where the planets have aligned to create songs that display the best of both genres. Ten instances, to be exact, and you'll find them below. Do you agree? Then post your holiday toast to my list. Don't agree? Post the all-time Christmas jazz song of your choice in the comments section below. I will save a special lump of coal just ...

The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi

By Marc Davis

Vince GuaraldiThe Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi Jazz Casual Productions 2016 In 1962, jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi scored a surprise hit with his catchy, upbeat record “Cast Your Fate to the Wind." Three years later, millions of Americans who thought they didn't like jazz discovered Guaraldi's music on the debut of the TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas--and they loved it. His signature song, “Linus and Lucy," is perhaps the most popular jazz tune ...

Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas

By Marc Davis

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the corniest jazz-Christmas album ever made. And that's OK. It's even good. I know the dig. What Vince Guaraldi played wasn't jazz, it was lounge music. It was sentimental. It was lightweight. It was sappy. Yep. All of that. So what? Christmas time is about memories. That's what the smells, the sights, the tastes and the music are about. Some are family memories, some are ...

Jazz for Kids!

By AAJ Staff

There is some kind of Jazz for everybody. And kids are no different. While the music presented here is by no means only for kids (Silly Rabbit, it's okay) it does happen to have the necessary qualities for kids to gravitate toward it. There's the fun factor; Horace Silver's music is undoubtedly FUN. There's the “head bob" factor, music that gets their heads a-boppin'; ditto Silver, but Monk is just as danceable in his own way. Finally, there are charismatic, ...

Jazzy Christmas

By Michael Ricci

Enduring holiday classics from Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Kenny Burrell, Bill Evans, Jimmy Smith, Vince Guaraldi and more. TrackNameTimeArtistAlbum1The Christmas Song3:30Ella FitzgeraldElla Wishes You A Swinging Christmas2Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!4:37Joe WilliamsVerve Presents: The Very Best Of Christmas Jazz3Santa Claus Is Coming To Town4:27Bill EvansThe Best Of Bill Evans On Verve4What Are You Doing New Years Eve2:24Nancy WilsonUltra-Lounge: Christmas Cocktails, Part One5Winter Wonderland2:28Chet BakerYule Struttin'6Greensleeves5:28Vince GuaraldiA Charlie Brown Christmas7Christmas Is3:12Lou RawlsStarbucks Holiday8Jingle Bells3:12Jimmy SmithVerve ...

The Importance of Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas

By C. Michael Bailey

Into my heart on air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again. --A.E. Houseman, A Shropshire Lad (1896) Vince Guaraldi A Charlie Brown Christmas

Derrick Bang: Vince Guaraldi at the Piano

By Jeff Dayton-Johnson

Vince Guaraldi at the Piano Derrick Bang 390 pages ISBN: 978-0-7864-5902-5 McFarland Books 2012 Based on Derrick Bang's encyclopedic biography of pianist Vince Guaraldi, you can draw two perhaps surprising conclusions about the subject's contribution to jazz. First, Guaraldi arguably hipped more listeners to this musical form than anyone else since the heyday of the big bands. He did so by means of “Cast Your Fate To The Wind," three minutes ...

Vince Guaraldi at the Piano

By Derrick Bang

This article appears in the prologue of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano by Derrick Bang (McFarland Books, 2012).Prologue: “The Sound of Surprise" Saturday, October 4, 1958: shortly after midnight, at the first-ever Monterey Jazz Festival.It had been a busy day; indeed, it was already a long three-day weekend. Headliner Louis Armstrong--introduced by emcee Dizzy Gillespie--had helped lure a crowd of roughly 5,000 jazz fans to Friday evening's opening-night performances, although one critic was much ...

Vince Guaraldi: Peanuts Portraits

By Larry Taylor

Charles Schulz's Peanuts has been an enduring newspaper cartoon classic since the late 1940s. Its popularity peaked in the 1960s when the series was adapted for the first of many animated television specials, with music written by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. The strips continue to run today in newspapers, 10 years after Schulz's death in 2000.

For Peanuts Portraits, Concord has compiled many of the most popular tunes from the series, originally recorded on LPs; selections that should appeal to ...

Vince Guaraldi: The Definitive Vince Guaraldi

By David Rickert

Many of us were turned on to jazz before we even knew what it was, thanks to Vince Guaraldi. His soundtracks for the Peanuts television specials were a novel idea in cartoon scoring, yet seemed to perfectly fit the deceptively sophisticated adventures of Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang. His originals were some of the best jazz to come from the West Coast scene and a tribute to what can happen when a great muse hits a ...

Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas

By Jim Santella

This 1965 soundtrack has become ingrained in our minds through repeated leisurely holiday seasons with the family in the living room. They're great memories, brought to us by a stellar jazz piano trio that was always on top of the situation. Together, they gave us a no-nonsense setting. Each traditional Christmas song and each Guaraldi original leaves a smile on our faces.

Children's voices add a loving touch to “My Little Drum, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and ...

Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas

By David Rickert

If you were born in the sixties or later, there's a good chance that your first exposure to jazz was through the Peanuts Christmas special. Today the whimsical music of Vince Guaraldi seems inseparable from this holiday classic, but it almost didn't happen that way; producer Lee Mendelson originally envisioned either Dave Brubeck or Cal Tjader writing the score, even though CBS felt jazz was unsuitable for a cartoon show. Fortunately the show as we know it took place, giving ...