Big news, folks.
Omnivore Recordings — a terrific prestige label, with an impressive catalog — will release two Vince Guaraldi items on July 6: The Complete Warner Bros.–Seven Arts Recordings (encompassing Vince’s three Warner Bros.-Seven Arts albums: Oh, Good Grief!, The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi and Alma-Ville), as a two-CD set with four previously unreleased bonus tracks; and the classic Oh, Good Grief! album, on translucent red vinyl.
Check out this cool trailer.
Got your attention with the phrase “bonus tracks,” right?
It's true. The double-CD package includes never-heard-before covers of Bacharach/David’s “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and the gospel hit “Oh, Happy Day,” along with a Guaraldi original titled “The Share Cropper’s Daughter” and an alternate take of “The Beat Goes On.”
Quoting now from Omnivore's press release:
Many people got to know Guaraldi through his 1963 Grammy Award-winning song, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” or via Sounds Orchestral’s Top 10 cover of it two years later. Lee Mendelson heard Guaraldi’s version while working on a Peanuts documentary; he contacted the pianist and asked him to score that project. Although Mendelson wasn’t able to sell that documentary to network television, he and Guaraldi subsequently reunited for what became the first Peanuts television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. It was a match made in TV and musical history. With songs like “Linus and Lucy,” the show was a hit, and for more than five decades, not a holiday season went by without an airing. So potent and successful was the Peanuts/Guaraldi combination that the jazz pianist went on to score a total of 15 Peanuts television specials, a 1969 documentary and the debut feature film that same year.
In 1968, Vince made a label switch from his long-time home, Fantasy Records, to Warner Bros. Records. For his inaugural album, Oh, Good Grief!, he decided to re-interpret his Peanuts classics. In addition to the instantly recognizable Guaraldi sound of piano, bass and drums, he added electric guitar and electric harpsichord to the mix. The record was a smash hit.
For its 50th anniversary, Oh, Good Grief! will be presented by Omnivore Recordings the way the world first heard it: as stated on the original release’s back cover, “on shiny black vinyl.” (Well, actually, this special edition is “on shiny red vinyl.”) Mastered by Kevin Gray and pressed at world-class record-pressing plant RTI, this timeless album never has sounded better.
Following Oh, Good Grief!,1969’s The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi lived up to its title and found the pianist experimenting: There’s a large string section, Guaraldi’s first recorded vocals (covering the singer/songwriter Tim Hardin), and original compositions that could be described as lengthy rock jams.
Guaraldi’s last album for the label and final-ever album, 1970’s Alma-Ville, ranks among his best-ever releases. Six of the nine songs on this “return to jazz” project were Guaraldi originals; the set was recorded with several different ensembles. Besides the original compositions, Alma-Ville finds Guaraldi covering the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” which had become a staple of his live performances; Duke Pearson’s “Cristo Redentor”; and the Michel Legrand/Norman Gimbel song “Watch What Happens.”
Guaraldi’s three albums for Warner Bros.-Seven Arts have been produced for this reissue by Grammy Award-winning Omnivore, Cheryl Pawelski; and remastered by Grammy Award-winning engineer, Michael Graves (who, under his Osiris Studios banner, also handled remastering for earlier Guaraldi digital releases such as Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus and Oaxaca). The new liner notes are written by your humble biographer/blogger.
Orders can be made directly from Omnivore.
Orders can be made directly from Omnivore.
Mark your calendars: July 6 will be a big day!
6 comments:
Hi Derrick, this sounds very interesting, especially for the four bonus tracks. Did you hear something new about the "Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi" DVD release after the failed crowdfunding campaign? I heard, there once was a press release DVD of the film with two audio bonus discs of unreleased music of Vince. Do you know anything about the content of this discs?
Thank you,
Frank Oliver Hellmann from Germany
I'm not aware of any such release of "Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi," and I simply cannot imagine the film's producers being in possession of such unreleased music. Sounds like an optimistic rumor!
Hi Derrick, after long time I found the source of the rumor:
please check the following forum entry:
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-anatomy-of-vince-guaraldi-at-last-or-is-it.627051/
User "Raoul97202" wrote:
I still have the full film on DVD, along with A LOT of bonus features. I think this was offered to radio stations during the abbreviated tour of the film. I still watch it at least once a year. As mentioned above, the version I have may have been edited since then.
I'd like to clarify my earlier post about my press release DVD of The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi.
The "lots of bonus features" I was referring to are audio features. My DVD of this film came with two audio discs.
Still, LOTS of interesting things there. But audio bonus features.
Best wishes, Frank Oliver Hellmann
Frank: "Lots of interesting things" doesn't necessarily mean "never-before heard things." It would be helpful if you'd list precisely what's on those audio discs.
Derrick, unfortunaly I don`t know the content of the audio discs, becaus I don`t have them. But I now found the following on the Kickstarter page of the failed crowdfunding campaign:
"Featuring never-before-seen Guaraldi performances (plus a soundtrack constructed from previously unreleased material gleaned from Vince’s live and private studio recordings), you won’t hear or see any of this anywhere else"
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/487615092/the-anatomy-of-vince-guaraldi
Best wishes, Frank Oliver
Ah. Clearly, then, we need to get "Raoul97202" to tell us!
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