David Guaraldi, R.I.P.

David Anthony Guaraldi, Vince’s first-born child and only son, passed away on September 24.

He was only 71. Much too young.

 

It’s safe to say, that without David’s help and enthusiasm early on, I likely never would have written his father’s biography. I owe David a lot.

 

How that happened is a somewhat complicated story. 

 

Back in 1990, my wife and I learned about the existence of the Peanuts Collector Club (PCC), an international clan devoted to the work of Charles M. Schulz, and which thrives to this day. We became members later that year, possibly in early 1991. At the time — in those prehistoric days — club founder/president Andrea Podley produced four to six club newsletters per year, which were snail-mailed to all members. Having worked as a journalist since 1974, I immediately offered to contribute an occasional article.

 

I already was an avid Guaraldi fan, and had collected many (but not yet all) of the albums that featured him as leader or sideman. It therefore was logical to make one of my first newsletter contributions an article about him.

 

Easier said than done.

 

To my great surprise, there wasn’t much “out there” about Vince. Library research at the time was limited to microfilmed newspaper archives and bound volumes of magazines, the contents of which were tabulated in bulky annual reference guides. Searching under Guaraldi’s name was easy ... but his entries were rare, and usually unhelpful.

 

I finally pieced together an article published in the PCC newsletter’s summer 1993 issue. The content drew mostly from San Francisco Chronicle music columnist Ralph’s Gleason’s lengthy liner notes on many Guaraldi albums; Chronicle columnist John L. Wasserman’s warm tribute article, published March 15, 1976; and the surprisingly limited mention in Ted Gioia’s 1992 book, West Coast Jazz. 

 

Shortly thereafter, acknowledging the Internet’s rapid rise in popularity, Andrea asked me to set up the club’s spanking-new website. Such endeavors obviously need content, and the fastest way to fill the club’s early web pages involved lifting the best “evergreen” articles from past newsletter issues; my Guaraldi piece was a logical choice. (Curious readers can find an updated version of that article here, although — trust me — its first few iterations weren’t nearly as thorough.)

 

A few more years passed.

 

I began my 13-year stint as Entertainment Editor of our local newspaper in January 1997. Later that year, I was gob-smacked by getting an unexpected phone call from George Winston. His first Guaraldi cover album — Linus and Lucy, The Music of Vince Guaraldi — had come out in 1996, so I knew that George was an avid fan of Guaraldi. As it happened, George had been searching the Internet high and low, hoping to find more information about Vince ... and his sole “hit” was my article (!).

We subsequently began a delightful — and fruitful — correspondence, comparing and sharing notes about Vince. Among other things, he told me about Bob Doerschuk’s marvelously detailed (and long!) tribute article, in the July 1981 issue of Keyboard magazine. (It can be found here.)

 

When George performed an all-Guaraldi tribute concert at Santa Rosa’s Luther Burbank Center on November 28, 1998, my wife and I were George’s guests. The seats were terrific, and — not by coincidence — we were right behind David Guaraldi, his wife Kathleen, their young son Ryan. and Vince’s mother, Carmella. My review of that “magical evening” can be read here.

 

Following the concert, we were invited backstage, where George introduced us to David and his family. George praised my then-modest efforts on behalf of Vince’s career, which greatly excited David; we chatted for several minutes, and exchanged phone numbers. When it finally was time to leave, I was honored to walk Carmella out to their car, on my arm.

 

A typical scrapbook page

David called me the following day, wanting to visit and “share some stuff” about his father. (Quite an understatement, as it turned out.) We arranged for a late morning meeting at our house the following weekend. David brought loads of stuff, including one of Vince’s press kit folders, containing lots of cool material, including a couple of the promotional cardboard mustaches handed out to nightclub patrons, back in the day, all of which he said I could keep. But my eyes truly widened at the sight of two large scrapbooks, each crammed with newspaper articles, interviews, club ads and brief little squibs about Vince, which Carmella had dutifully clipped from local newspapers — primarily the Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner — from 1955 until the late 1960s. Paging through them left me breathless.

When our visit concluded, David left them with me, saying could I borrow them for as long as desired.

 

Talk about a mixed reaction: I was both elated ... and terrified.

 

It was one of those moments where the brain contemplates all manner of absurd disaster scenarios. What if our dog got at the scrapbooks, and chomped on the contents? What if we had a badly placed plumbing leak? What if the house burned down? 

 

As it happened, we had a home photocopy machine. I spent the rest of that day, and the entire following morning, photocopying every page. Then I boxed up the scrapbooks, drove to the Post Office, and shipped them back to David. (And fretted, until he verified that they had arrived safely.)

 

Another typical scrapbook page

I spent several months poring over every page, and sketching out a rough timeline of Vince’s activities; I also was able to enhance that PCC website article. (That said, Carmella hadn’t always noted publication dates, which later proved a bit vexing.) David and I chatted infrequently during the next few years, and he occasionally wondered if I had “bigger plans” in mind. 

At that point, I honestly didn’t. I kept expecting one of the long-established jazz journalists or historians to tackle a Guaraldi biography, or perhaps one of Vince’s former sidemen would step up to the plate. But as the first decade of the 21st century proceeded, I noticed we were losing some of Dr. Funk’s earlier colleagues and collaborators. By this point — 2004 — I also was writing new liners notes for Oaxaca and other compilation albums David was issuing on the revived D&D label.

 

Eventually, and to echo part of what Vince said, when offered the challenge to compose and perform what became the Grace Cathedral Jazz Mass...

 

...I decided, okay, why not me? After all, I had a great start, with all that scrapbook material.

 

You’re reading this blog, so you know the rest.

 

And so much never would have happened, had I not met George, who then introduced me to David, who then graciously shared so much priceless archival material about his father.

 

David and his sister, Dia, were first on the list, in my 2012 biography’s acknowledgments.

 

I thank him again now.

 

Neither David nor I could have guessed, back in 1998, how much his generosity would change my life, and later open so many wonderful doors, and equally exciting opportunities.

 

Our lives are lucky, if we’re blessed with one or more decisive “pivot points.”

That certainly was one of mine.