The Charlie Brown Suite And Other Favorites

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. 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.