Vince on the Web: 2024 update

This topic hasn't been revisited since 2014, and it's definitely time for another look. Rather than link back to that earlier post, I'll simply repeat, modify and update it here.

Guaraldi fans are lucky; all of the albums under his own name have remained in print and been readily available since their initial release, with new ones arriving rapidly these days. 

But what about material that saw limited commercial release, or none at all?

Quite a few nuggets exist, thanks to the Web. Some are housed in authorized online archives that share them with the general public; others are bootlegs that (shall we say) lack that level of legitimacy, but nonetheless can be enjoyed by folks who haven't yet discovered them.

Onward!

Our first stop is SugarMegs Audio, "where live music lives since 1996." The site hosts a massive archive of more than 120,000 concert recordings, in whole or in part. Most are rock/pop, but you'll find other things as well. (One can get lost in this site for days...) On the homepage, scroll down to where THE STREAMING AUDIO COLLECTION is headlined, then click on the "database interface" link below. That'll bring up a page with a small white SEARCH box on the left. Enter the name "Guaraldi," and — as these words are typed — you'll get 15 hits. Most are other performers covering one or more Guaraldi songs, but two entries actually feature Vince. From the top, they are:

• A shared billing with no less than Carlos Santana, during a benefit for the College of Marin in Kentfield, California, on the afternoon of October 7, 1972. The band also included Coke and Pete Escovedo; other personnel, if present, remain unnamed. Although numerous sources agree that the entire show was broadcast by a local radio station — some claim KPFA, others KSAN — only two fragments seem to have survived: a portion of a jam running just shy of 7 minutes, and a second, longer fragment from an extended jam version of "Evil Ways," which clocks in at about 15:38. You'll find them both here, stitched together as a single file. Guaraldi's electric keyboard can be heard quite clearly throughout both fragments, although the melodic quality of his contribution is open to debate. Mostly, he delivers the extemporaneous riffs that characterized his occasional rock-inflected appearances at the Matrix, during this part of his career. This file's nice bonus, however, is the DJ who speaks over the music at roughly 20:40, to identify Santana on guitar, and Guaraldi on electric piano.

• The massive jam during the final night of the five-day farewell party for San Francisco's Fillmore West, which ran June 30-July 4, 1971. Guaraldi was part of the final evening's "San Francisco Musicians Jam," which included Van Morrison, the Tower of Power horn section, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Cold Blood, Hot Tuna, the Loading Zone and even rock impresario Bill Graham, on cowbell. The entry labeled "FillmoreWestFinalNightJams1971" focuses on that set. Guaraldi played electric organ. You'll be hard-pressed to hear him over the chaos, but you're welcome to try!

• Unfortunately, the final entry -- Guaraldi's presence as part of Van Morrison's back-up band, for a concert at the Lion's Share, in San Anselmo, California, on February 15, 1973 -- has been removed from SugarMegs. But fear not; you can hear a far superior version of the entire 93-minute set that included Guaraldi, at this YouTube link.

Morrison played two sets, and Guaraldi joined the band for the entire second set. To quote my book:

Perhaps inspired by Guaraldi's presence, Morrison devoted much of the second set to covers of standards that included "Misty" and "White Cliffs of Dover." The fit was awkward; Morrison did much better on his own hits, such as "Listen to the Lion" and "Hard Nose the Highway."

Even so, Guaraldi was allowed generous solos; he riffed on electric keyboard midway through "White Cliffs of Dover" and comped quite enthusiastically behind an oddly up-tempo handling of "Misty."

Guaraldi shared the stage with Morrison on December 1,
1972, during a benefit designed to help save the
Alhambra Theater, in Sacramento. Sadly, the effort failed.
(Photo by Douglas Taggart)

You can judge for yourself. Guaraldi spent about half a year with Morrison, from late 1972 through the spring of 1973, but this is the only known recording of their work together.

Guaraldi shared the stage with Van Morrison

on December 1, 1972, during a benefit designed

to help save the Alhambra Theater in Sacramento,

California. (Sadly, that effort failed.)

• Soon-to-become-famous drummer Mike Clark was a member of Guaraldi's trio, off and on, from early 1970 through late 1975; Clark also played drums on the scores for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown. A kind soul has posted a 36-minute portion of the Guaraldi combo's performance at El Matador on February 1, 1975; the initial 13 minutes or so is a jam with just Clark and a trumpet player, but then it cuts abruptly to the entire combo, doing four songs. I can't identify the first one; the second (starting at 16:00) is "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"; the third (starting at roughly 24:00) is Charlie Parker's "Steeplechase"; and the fourth (31:30) is a Peanuts tune, "Woodstock's Pad." The audio quality leaves much to be desired, but hey; it's better than nothing!

• British-born jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather lived and breathed the genre; I well remember reading his articles and reviews in the Los Angeles Times for many years, and he also was co-editor of Metronome magazine until that publication ceased in 1961. During his time at Metronome, he created an occasional feature known as the "Blindfold Test," during which a noted jazz musician would be played a series of recordings and challenged to identify them, while also discussing their various merits (or lack thereof). Feather later took the feature to Downbeat magazine, and it also was an occasional part of his jazz-oriented radio show Platterbrains, during its run on the ABC radio network from 1953 through '58.

Guaraldi was the "victim" for an installment of the Blindfold Test published in Downbeat on March 25, 1965. He nailed four of the eight tunes Feather played, and wasn't shy about explaining why he did or didn't like a particular cut. The University of Idaho has made a significant portion of its Leonard Feather Jazz Collection available online, and the archives include the tape Feather made when he subjected Guaraldi to this challenge. Yep, you can actually hear Guaraldi give his responses ... although you can't hear any of the music. Absent that key bit of data, Guaraldi's comments will seem random; you'll therefore want to follow along with the Downbeat article itself, at right. (Click the image for a larger, readable version.)

Some necessary explanation:

Despite the length of the file, Guaraldi's portion is limited to the first 13 minutes and 13 seconds. Everything that follows is  different, and — despite what the explanatory text claims — has nothing to do with either Cal Tjader or Clare Fischer, neither of whom appear anywhere on the clip (although they are the featured performers on one of the tracks Feather selected for Guaraldi's Test). The Collection's cited date (March 1, 1962) also must be taken with a grain of salt, since at least two of the recordings Guaraldi discusses weren't even released until 1964 and early '65.

Aside from the candor of Guaraldi's comments, and his apparent discomfort with the process itself, it's fascinating to compare the audio to the Downbeat text, to see how Feather edited and shaped the resulting column. And something odd occurs after the fifth song (Tjader's "O Barquinho") and before the seventh (Duke Ellington's cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind"). It sounds like two songs are discussed in between, whereas Feather cites only one — Andrew Hill's "Judgment" — as the sixth song of the eight published in the column. Prior to his brief chat about "Judgment," Guaraldi talks quite a bit about "a blues number ... that leaves me cold," and there's no evidence of that in the text version. I'm assuming Feather played nine tracks that day, but chose to use Guaraldi's observations about only eight of them.

One other oddity: According to Feather's published column, Guaraldi's discussion of Ellington's take on "Blowing in the Wind" includes this statement: "You know who I'd like to hear play with this band? Sonny Rollins." But Guaraldi never says that anywhere on this recording! So ... where did that remark come from? An aside that Guaraldi made, after Feather turned off the tape recorder?

We'll likely never know.

Those little mysteries aside, the recording is a delight. Guaraldi can be quite blunt, and he certainly doesn't seem to care if anybody's feelings might get bruised. At the same time, he has a solid preference for melody, and little use for the cacophony of the "free jazz" movement that would become more common, during the next few years. 

Which is rather ironic, considering how "free" some of his own performances would become in the late 1960s and early '70s!

Moving on to video:

• The Big Beat is believed to be Guaraldi’s only appearance in a big-screen feature film. Numerous teen-friendly musical acts share billing in this 1958 B-film programmer; Tjader’s Quintet pops up roughly 66 minutes in, during a nightclub sequence, and performs a bit of “I’ve Waited So Long” as the two primary stars make their way to a table. The band is on camera for about 30 seconds, and Guaraldi can be seen in the lower right of the screen. This film circulates on cable movie channels and in packages still used by independent TV stations, but -- thus far -- lacks an online presence.

• Toward the beginning of Lee Mendelson's long run with Peanuts TV specials, the director/producer had time for outside projects. One of these, Bay of Gold, was a documentary about the San Francisco Bay, produced for the Fireman's Fund American Insurance Company. The hour-long program aired at 10 p.m. September 14, 1965, on San Francisco's KPIX Channel 5. Guaraldi doesn't appear in the film, but he did supply an original soundtrack that included a few familiar tunes: his song "Macedonia," a samba-style number that was heard on Little Band, Big Jazz, the album on which he worked with Conte Candoli; and a second melodic riff that clearly anticipated the Peanuts track eventually titled "Rain, Rain, Go Away." The San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive has made this film available in its entirety, and it can be viewed here.

• Almost precisely a year later, Guaraldi and his band — Puzzy Firth, bass; and Paul Distel, drums — did appear on camera during an installment of In the Marketplace, a public affairs show produced by KPIX. The episode focused on the Rev. Charles Gompertz and his then-innovative Church in Ignacio; a portion of the show was filmed January 23, 1966, during the church's presentation of the Guaraldi Jazz Mass (only the second time this Mass was staged, after its debut May 21, 1965, at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral). Guaraldi and his band are on camera for several minutes, and the documentary's soundtrack includes selections from the Mass. The San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive also has made this 30-minute film available in its entirety, and it can be viewed here.

• For many years, the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive also listed a KPIX clip rather vaguely titled "Vince and Kids" and recorded (or broadcast) on July 21, 1967. As documented more fully in this post, an e-mail exchange with an archivist yielded the additional information that it was short, no more than two minutes, and had been filmed for a local news spot. Not wanting to wait an indefinite amount of time for it to be digitized, I hastened the process by paying for the work to be completed. The result is this short clip of Guaraldi and his trio rehearsing with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, working up Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," either for the upcoming album Vince Guaraldi and the San Francisco Boys Chorus, or perhaps for a live performance of same. Alas, the cameraman holds on Guaraldi and his (not identified) sidemen for only a few seconds, and then spends the rest of the performance time on the chorus members. We can hear the Guaraldi trio's contribution, but we never see them again. Happily, the final minute is a short interview with Guaraldi; he chats about the experience of working with the kids. 

• Unfortunately, the 2009 Andrew Thomas/Toby Gleason documentary, The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, never was able to secure mainstream release, due to lack of financing. All that remains available is the film's trailer, which can be viewed here.

• That said, some of what appears in that film was lifted from Ralph Gleason's 1963 three-part documentary, Anatomy of a Hit, which traced Guaraldi's rise following the success of "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." It, too, has never been available via mainstream release, although snippets occasionally pop up on YouTube. I can't link to them, because a) they're unauthorized; and b) they often vanish, until being re-posted by somebody else.

• The situation wasn't quite as bad with Guaraldi's two appearances on Gleason's Jazz Casual TV series. Guaraldi, fronting his own trio with bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey, first supported stars Ben Webster and Jimmy Witherspoon in an installment that was recorded Jan. 4, 1962; it aired on NET stations beginning in October that same year. Although ostensibly a “background” performer, Guaraldi is very much in evidence and receives generous camera time. This episode was released on VHS videotape by Rhino in the 1990s, and subsequently on DVD by Jazz Casual Productions, but only on Region 2 discs (Europe, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Middle East, etc.). Two years later, in early 1964, Guaraldi — joined by guitarist Bola Sete, bassist Fred Marshall and drummer Jerry Granelli— starred in his combo's second appearance. This set was recorded in the summer on 1963, and aired on NET stations beginning in early 1964. It also was released on videotape by Rhino in the 1990s, and subsequently on DVD by Jazz Casual Productions, but — again — only on Region 2 discs. As with Anatomy of a Hit, unauthorized snippets can be found on YouTube.

• The modest documentary Vince Guaraldi: The Maestro of Menlo Park was made as a bonus feature for the DVD set Peanuts 1960s Collection. Directors Alexander Gray and Jeff Maynard obtained excellent commentary from a wealth of individuals who knew and worked with Dr. Funk: Lee Mendelson, David Benoit, George Winston, jazz vocalist Kitty Margolis and former Guaraldi sidemen Eddie Duran (guitar); Dean Reilly and Seward McCain (bass); and Colin Bailey, Vince Lateano, Mark Rosengarden and Jim Zimmerman (drums). Personal recollections are supplied by Guaraldi’s son David, and the 37-minute film also boasts an impressive wealth of archival photos and newspaper clippings, along with plenty of Peanuts TV special animation, backed by Guaraldi’s signature cues. The DVD set is long out of print, but it’s easy to find on the secondary market; this documentary also pops up as an isolated video on YouTube.

That's it for this round. Rest assured, though: If any other audio or video treasures surface elsewhere on the Web, you'll find out about them here.