Thanksgiving comes early this year!

Big news, gang.

 

We’ve all held our breath since late last year, hoping that the reception for the Definitive, Super Deluxe Charlie Brown Christmas — and the recently discovered, isn’t-it-fabulous original session recordings that produced a superior soundtrack for Great Pumpkin -- would translate, moving forward, into additional releases from Guaraldi’s Peanuts canon.

 

It has come to pass.

 

October 20 will see the debut of the full soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, just in time for the 1973 special’s 50th anniversary: 13 themes and cues used in the show, along with nine never-before-heard bonus and alternative tracks. The album will be available in three states: CD, vinyl and digital download.

 

Check out the official press release here.

 

Pre-order the CD from MVD here.

 

Pre-order the standard (black vinyl) LP from MVD here.

Pre-order the above CD or LP from Amazon here and here.

Pre-order the special Record Store Day jelly bean green vinyl LP here.

Pre-order the Target exclusive cranberry vinyl LP here.

The track list:

 

Show score:

    1. Charlie Brown Blues

    2. Thanksgiving Theme

    3. Thanksgiving Theme (Reprise)

    4. Peppermint Patty

    5. Little Birdie

    6. Thanksgiving Interlude

    7. Is It James or Charlie?

    8. Linus and Lucy

    9. Fife & Drums Theme

    10. Charlie Brown Blues (Reprise)

    11. Thanksgiving Interlude (Reprise)

    12. Thanksgiving Theme (2nd Reprise)

    13. Thanksgiving Theme (3rd  Reprise)

 

Bonus/Alternate tracks:

    14. Thanksgiving Theme (Alternate)

    15. Peppermint Patty (Bonus Mix)

    16. Linus and Lucy (Bonus Mix)

    17. Thanksgiving Interlude (Alternate take 2, 4, and 6)

    18. Thanksgiving Interlude (Alternate take 10)

    19. Thanksgiving Interlude (Alternate take 14)

    20. Is It James or Charlie? (Bonus mix with Whistling)

    21. Clark and Guaraldi

Preview Track 16 here.

Preview Track 20 here.

 

The recording features Vince Guaraldi, piano, keyboards and vocals; Tom Harrell, trumpet and brass arrangements; Chuck Bennett, trombone; Seward McCain, electric bass; and Mike Clark, drums. The album is produced by Sean and Jason Mendelson, re-mixed by Terry Carleton at Bones and Knives, and restored and mastered/re-mastered by Vinson Hudson.

 

Avid Guaraldi fans have long regarded this Emmy Award-winning TV special as a favorite, which is no surprise; the show is wall-to-wall music, bouncing between acoustic and electric keyboards, going silent only during Linus’ gentle sermon about the first Thanksgiving (a speech almost as eloquent as the one he delivers in Charlie Brown Christmas).

 

That sequence aside, Guaraldi was allowed to stretch and supply longer cues, each one beginning as the previous one fades. The show boasts three new tunes, starting with a lyrical title theme constructed from acoustic piano filigrees that evoke the keyboard cascades in “Skating.” An impudent cue titled “Is It James or Charlie?” adds a bit of James Brown sass to the mix; and the stand-out newcomer is Guaraldi’s vocal on “Little Birdie,” played at length when Snoopy — tasked with setting up the outdoor dining arrangements — wrestles with a basketball net, a garage door, a ping-pong table and an impressively sentient folding chair. 

 

Returning cues include one of Guaraldi’s best arrangements of “Linus and Lucy,” with brass adding a spirited counterpoint to the primary theme, and also shading a new four-chord climb at the end of each verse’s fourth measure: heard while Snoopy orchestrates the Thanksgiving “dinner” of buttered toast, popcorn, pretzels, jelly beans and ice cream parfaits. “Peppermint Patty” gets a quiet, leisurely arrangement on electric keyboard: perfectly echoing the girl’s coquettish side, notably when she flirts with Charlie Brown over the phone, while inviting herself — and Marcie and Franklin — to a party that doesn’t yet exist. 

 

The show’s final reprise of the title theme introduces a sparkling brass counterpoint: a terrific conclusion to a half-hour of solid combo jazz.

What’s not to love?

The Peanuts Connection: Down to the last note!

I first "met" Rob Kirby when he was one of several hundred individuals who submitted an essay for 2009's Security Blankets: How Peanuts Touched Our Lives, the book I co-edited with Don Fraser. Rob's essay was charming, warm and droll: precisely the sort of "personal touch" that we were seeking. He easily made the cut, and his contribution — and a similarly droll photo — can be found on Page 75.

Rob's essay also acknowledged his fondness for Guaraldi, and recognition of the major impact that Vince's music had on the early Peanuts TV specials. Our shared interest kept us in touch, exchanging notes every so often, with Rob occasionally hinting at a "big project" that he kept meaning to tackle.

Typical British understatement.

Rob has completed his labor of love, and it's astonishing. Starting with the Music Use Sheets that I had posted on one of my many Guaraldi web pages, and armed with DVDs of every Guaraldi-scored Peanuts TV special — and the big-screen film A Boy Named Charlie Brown — along with all the albums of Guaraldi's music available to the mainstream public, Rob meticulously analyzed every second of music in each film, cross-checking against the titles indicated by the Music Use Sheets, and in many cases filling in additional data and correcting mistakes. (As I explain, in that page's introduction, Music Use Sheets are "dynamic" documents that undergo changes en route to a finished product, much the way scripts can change during filming. Initial intentions notwithstanding, when it came time to edit a given scene, a last-minute decision might be made to drop a planned cue, or add one where music hadn't originally been requested. The Use Sheets kindly shared by Lee Mendelson, many years ago, gave no indication of what part of production they represented. A few dovetailed very neatly to an animated special as aired; others did not.)

Rob's efforts allowed me, at long last, to amend that page so that the Music Use Sheet list for each film now accurately reflects the finished product; the results can be viewed here.

But that's only the tip of Rob's research. He also carefully analyzed every cue, from the shortest snippet to a full-length melody, to determine uniqueness. Many of Guaraldi's most popular Peanuts themes appear multiple times in a given TV special, in some cases in different arrangements or different "takes" (as is the nature of jazz). That distinction wasn't mentioned in the original Music Use Sheets; thanks to Rob, we now know — as just one example — that several different versions of the "Baseball Theme" are used in 1966's Charlie Brown's All-Stars, only one of which matches the version included on Guaraldi's album, Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

And that's the other great feature of Rob's work: He also identified where specific cues — which is to say, a precise arrangement — can be found, among Guaraldi's various albums.

Along the way, he uncovered a few surprises, and made some savvy observations.

He realized, for example, that the delightfully upbeat version of "Peppermint Patty," heard midway through 1967's You're in Love Charlie Brown, is a bonus track on the CD re-release of Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus. Along a similar line, the terrific, brass-heavy arrangement of "Linus and Lucy," heard midway through 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, can be found on the CD The Charlie Brown Suite and Other Favorites, where it's titled "Linus and Lucy with the Band."

Rob also has a keen ear, having recognized something that I'm ashamed to admit I've missed, all these years: The cue "Bon Voyage," heard early in 1968's He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown, clearly is adapted from the song "Monterey," one of the other tracks on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus.

On a more sobering note — literally — Rob noticed that most of the cues written for 1976's It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown sound suspiciously similar to earlier tunes such as "Christmas Time Is Here," "Joe Cool" and the aforementioned "Baseball Theme." An overly hasty assumption might suggest that Guaraldi was running out of creative juice, but I strongly doubt that; it seems much more likely that Guaraldi's very poor health affected his work on this special. Remember, he died right after finishing the studio recordings for this show.

My Music Use web page doesn't begin to cover all of Rob's thorough research, which must be appreciated in its entirety, at his blog. (You'll also want to read his detailed account of what prompted this project, and how he approached it.) As he explains, in his key, bold entries refer to specific arrangements of cues that can be found on various Guaraldi albums. Green entries address disputed existing information, and blue entries refer to cues that were rearranged and re-recorded on albums by Guaraldi or George Winston.

Granted, Rob's efforts represent a degree of "geeking out" that'll likely be appreciated — to the proper degree — by only a small handful of people. But as somebody who shares Rob's obsessive research tendencies, I regard his work as an invaluable document, and a resource of historic proportion.

On top of which, it's a lot of fun to read!