Vince Guaraldi's Linus and Lucy?

Funny how you think of it as a Christmas song. I guess having it in A Charlie Brown Christmas does that!

It's just one of many great jazz songs to me. I especially like Dave Brubeck's interpretation.

It's about to drive me nuts!!! Playing the WHOLE time I am at work!

Ok, I'll see about calming down now..

Moni

I love Christmas music, but I really try to tune it out in public places (how do clerks and cashiers stand it?) so I can enjoy it in my home and car.

I have George Winston's version of Vince Guaraldi's Linus and Lucy on my iTunes and just love it.

We have two radio stations here in Southern CA that started playing Christmas music 24 hours a day starting in early November. I'm already sick of it.

Jodi-

I googled it and that's the song! That's a Christmas song to me....LOL

The only time I ever hear the TranSiberian Orchestra is at Christmas as well.

I love Christmas music but 24/7 would drive me crazy. I don't play it at home yet so I won't get so tired of it.

When i worked in retail in the late 80's thru the nineties,we were allowed to bring in our own xmas music ,cassettes,so it changed all through the day,and the customers liked that much better than the piped in stuff.
Kathi

I love Manheim Steamrollers. I have several of thier cd's
I start playing them after I put up the tree, usually the first week end of Dec. Thier music is very beautiful,and easy to listen to.

Well, I guess it's better than the rock/hiphop they play in my grocery store. It's all for the teenagers who work there, not taking into consideration all of us older people who shop there! (Love Manheim Steamroller!)

> Vince Guaraldi's Linus and Lucy?

Funny how you think of it as a Christmas song. I guess having it in A Charlie Brown Christmas does that!

It was written specifically for the Charlie Brown special at Charles Schulz's request. I've long thought the show's eternal popularity stemmed in part from being a rare children's show that doesn't talk down to kids, and the music plays a role in that. At the time in 1965, like today, everyone normally used obvious kiddie songs in anything trying to appeal to children. Baffled CBS execs wanted to know what grown-up jazz was doing in a kids' show.

The word "classic" is so overused, but "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is *so* classic, utterly timeless, and its message of a depressed kid looking for the true meaning of Christmas lost beneath all the commercialism rings even more true today than in the LBJ era when it was made. Likewise the soundtrack - not only "Linus and Lucy", but also "Oh Tannenbaum" and "Christmastime is Here". The Vince Guaraldi Trio made lots of great music in the decade before that - anyone remember "A Flower is a Lovesome Thing" or "Cast Your Fate to the Wind"? But "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is his crowning moment of awesome.

The thing I noticed is the songs in the stores are less religious and more "modern". Play silent night for me - even just the tune - and I will stop and shop, but enough already with the "Rockin Around the Christmas tree" and "Fleas" Navidad. I love Amazon...
I think the worst music is at the Goodwill stores though - 12 months a year of loud loud music.

"It was written specifically for the Charlie Brown special at Charles Schulz's request. "
Interesting! Can you cite your source for that?

All I have known about the origin is what the USA Today printed:
"Guaraldi, the composer and pianist, was best known for a 1962 hit called Cast Your Fate To the Wind. Mendelson liked it so much that he hired Guaraldi to score a documentary about Schulz that never aired. When the Christmas program was sold, parts of that music were incorporated."

...which is quite different than what you state.

Let me know!

I checked around the interwebs and found conflicting info, but most agree with this album review for A Charlie Brown Christmas from AllMusic.com:

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz called on pianist extraordinaire Vince Guaraldi and his trio to compose and perform music that would reflect the humor, charm, and innocence of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the entire Peanuts gang for their 1965 Christmas TV special. It was a perfect match: Guaraldi strings together elegant, enticing arrangements that reflect the spirit and mood of Schulz's work and introduce contemporary jazz to youngsters with grace, charm, and creativity."

The Wikipedia entry for Vince Guaraldi has it like this:

"While searching for just the right music to accompany a planned Peanuts television documentary, Lee Mendelson (the producer of the special) heard "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" by Vince Guaraldi's trio on the radio while traveling in a taxicab on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California. Mendelson contacted Ralph J. Gleason, jazz columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and was put in touch with Guaraldi. He proposed that Guaraldi score the upcoming Peanuts Christmas special and Guaraldi enthusiastically took the job, performing a version of what became "Linus and Lucy" over the phone two weeks later."

The planned Peanuts documentary never aired, but the music Guaraldi prepared impressed Shultz, who was working on "A Charlie Brown Christmas" around that time, and Guaraldi was tapped to provide the musical soundtrack, beginning work on a set of Christmas songs for the show. Later in 1964 he put out an album called "Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown", which included the first appearance of "Linus and Lucy". A year later, the same recording was used for the TV special and its soundtrack album.

So it's not clear whether "Linus and Lucy" was originally intended to be a Christmas song, but it was clearly written for use on a Peanuts TV special at the behest of Schulz, either directly, or indirectly through his TV producers.

.....actually reading more closely, it looks like "Linus and Lucy" *was* written after Guaraldi knew he'd be writing and playing the music for "A Charlie Brown Christmas", even though the song made its debut on the Boy Called Charlie Brown album less than a year earlier.

Good to know I'm not the only jazz fan! LuAnn, I used to live next door to Paul Desmond. I love to tell this to Brubeck fans. LOL

I'm fond of most Christmas music, although there are a few tunes I can do without. I've been staying out of stores for the most part this year, so I haven't been bombarded yet. I have a couple of Christmas stations selected on Pandora.

For years I gave a Christmas party for people who love to sing. That satisfied all our Christmas music desires. :-)

I love Christmas music and Christmas movies

"Good to know I'm not the only jazz fan! LuAnn, I used to live next door to Paul Desmond. I love to tell this to Brubeck fans. LOL "

Cool!

LOVE jazz and the blues!

I love Christmas music, have only heard it once in the stores here. I only spend a couple of hours or less at the mall, so don't hear it 24/7. I have Neil Diamond's Christmas songs mixed in with the rest of the songs in ITunes. I have almost 1,500 songs in ITunes, I love listening to it in the shuffle mode, I never tire of any songs that way.

I attended a wedding in CA and the recessional was the Linus and Lucy Theme. It was really cute. The groom was a Peanuts fan.

I love Christmas carols, but like some of you, the 24/7 onslaught is just too much. A couple of our local radio stations play non-stop Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving. At the mall where I shop, you literally cannot stay in there 30 minutes without hearing "Santa Baby" and Dean Martin's "Baby it's Cold Outside" on loud volume.