About the WonderCafe Advent Calendar.

 

Today we’re talking about the music that made one of the greatest Christmas TV specials so great.

 

 

There’s a moment where I was Christmas shopping that I’ll never forget. I was working my way through the crowds at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre outside of Sears and suddenly I heard something familiar. I stopped, paused and tilted my head toward the speakers above playing Christmas music. And then my face exploded into an ear-to-ear grin.

 

They were playing the piece called “skating” from A Charlie Brown Christmas (curiously, in the cartoon it accompanies a scene where none of the kids are skating at all but rather catching snowflakes on their tongues).

 

I described last week my undying love of A Charlie Brown Christmas. And yet, as good as it is, it would only be an excellent cartoon without musician Vince Guaraldi’s brilliant jazz score. What’s great about the Vince Guaraldi’s music is that it enhances the sophistication of the script. Without it, you have kids talking precociously; with it, you have something sublime: a world with children with existential angst that’s believable.

 

The fact that Guaraldi’s score is so integral should not detract from the fact that it’s also so very good. Other jazz artists have taken Christmas standards and done their deconstructive magic to them; few have done it so brilliantly as Guaraldi (on piano) Colin Bailey (on drums) and Monty Budwig (on double bass) have done with their version of “O Tannenbaum” which takes the simple melody of a classic song and with every jazzy rephrasing brings out what makes that tune so great. It’s the musical equivalent of taking a great painting and making it come alive colour by colour.

 

 

See http://www.trilulilu.ro/zummagio/6c3cf7fb0bfe62

 

But it’s not nearly as abstract as that either. Guaraldi is a gifted pianist who can take a beautiful melody and zero in on what makes it beautiful and expand it greatly. His version of “Greensleeves” and “A Christmas Song” are shining examples of this. He knows where the sweet spot is in both songs and when he hits it, the result is spectactular.

 

Guaraldi also excels at the original music in the special. “Skating” immediately summons all the glories of winter. The main title “Christmas Time Is Here” is sublime when sung by a children’s choir but the instrumental version shows Guaraldi’s genius on the piano.

 

See:

 

And, of course, the tune called “Linus and Lucy”, which became better known as the theme to the Peanuts TV specials, is the coolest, hippest music you’ve ever seen cartoon kids perform kooky dancing alongside..

 

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The best Christmas music for me is about capturing a mood as much as anything and no one has done it better than Vince Guaraldi. Good grief, no.