Bits & bobs: Winter 2023

Late last year, I spent a delightful couple of hours chatting with Bill Carter, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. As some of you know, he's also an accomplished jazz pianist who heads the swingin' Presbybop Quartet, making him a member of the small but wonderfully active "jazz praise" musicians' network.

Longtime followers of Guaraldi and this blog will recall that Bill spent a year getting ready for his church's 50th anniversary celebration of Guaraldi's Grace Cathedral Jazz Mass, which resulted in a marvelous September morning in 2015, as I related here.

Bill also has spent the last few years writing a book, Thriving on a Riff: Jazz and the Spiritual Life, soon to be published by Broadleaf Books. Partly as a means of spreading the word about this project, and partly because he so enjoys discussing the intersection of music (notably jazz) and religion, he was encouraged to "enhance his media presence." He therefore began a fortnightly podcast, The Spirit of Jazz, which has been going strong since last August.

(By now you must have realized that Bill is one of those individuals who rarely pauses to eat or sleep.)

He invited me to be a guest for one episode, but — because our conversation continued at considerable length — he wound up with enough material for two full episodes. (Neither of us can be accused of having little to say.) They are:

• Jazz and Charlie Brown

• Jazz Goes to the Cathedral

While you're visiting, be sure to check out his other episodes; they're all quite engaging (just like Bill himself).

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Many months have passed, since the two new releases of Guaraldi's Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus were announced, back in September. So many months, in fact, that you've likely forgotten that Craft Recordings' Small Batch One-Step Pressing LP finally will be released next Friday, February 24. (New liner notes are supplied by someone I know fairly well.)

Orders can be placed here, or via Amazon, or — better still — request the album at your local brick-and-mortar music store, to help keep them in business!

Orpheus rising ... again!

Between the new and improved score for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (released on August 26) and the five-disc “Definitive, Super Deluxe Edition” of A Charlie Brown Christmas (coming on October 14), this already has been a banner year for Guaraldi fans.

 

As the old television advertising catch-phrase promised … But wait, there’s more!

 

Craft Recordings will release two enhanced editions of Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus in the next several months.

 

First up is the two-CD Deluxe Edition, scheduled for release on November 18. It also will be available in a digital configuration, and a three-disc vinyl format, the latter expected to ship by February 24, 2023. This edition features oodles of bonus tracks.

 

It will be followed by a Small Batch, One-Step Pressing vinyl edition of the original album (no bonus tracks), also expected to ship by February 24, 2023.

Additional details about both can be found here, and do check out this sleek promotion video.

 

I’ll also supply some pertinent data.

The Deluxe Edition features 16 bonus tracks, 12 released for the first time, with outtakes and alternate takes of nearly every track on the original 1962 LP. The package is produced by Nick Phillips, and includes new in-depth liner notes by Andrew Gilbert, a veteran jazz writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, KQED Arts and other outlets.

 

The track list is as follows, in the two-CD configuration:

 

Disc 1:

“Samba de Orfeu” 5:42

“Manhã de Carnaval” 5:50

“O Nosso Amor” 4:56

“Felicidade” 4:49

“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” 3:10

“Moon River” 5:21

“Alma-Ville” 5:00

“Since I Fell for You” 4:23

ALTERNATE TAKES

“Samba de Orfeu” (Short Version: Take 1, Set 3, Previously Unreleased) 3:29

“Samba de Orfeu” (Long Version: Take 1, Set 3, Previously Unreleased) 5:48

“Manhã de Carnaval” (Take 1, Set 3, Previously Unreleased) 6:32

“Manhã de Carnaval” (Take 2, Set 3) 6:17

 

Disc 2:

“O Nosso Amor” (Take 1, Set 3, Previously Unreleased) 5:08

“O Nosso Amor” (Take 2, Set 4) 5:00

“Felicidade” (Take 2, Set 2) 4:55

“Felicidade” (Take 4, Set 3 Previously Unreleased) 4:58

“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” (Take 2, Previously Unreleased) 3:02

“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” (Take 3) 3:04

“Cast Your Fate to the Wind” (Take 5, Previously Unreleased) 3:00

“Alma-Ville” (Take 2, Previously Unreleased) 5:03

“Since I Fell for You” (Take 3, Previously Unreleased) 4:21

OUTTAKES

“Jitterbug Waltz” (Take 1, Previously Unreleased) 6:53

“Jitterbug Waltz” (Take 1A, Previously Unreleased) 6:25

“Jitterbug Waltz” (Take 2A, Previously Unreleased) 6:36

Preview "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" (Take 5, Previously Unreleased) here.

(As wonderful as all these freshly released takes are, it's a shame this package doesn't include Ella Jamerson's vocal version of "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," backed by Guaraldi's trio, which still remains unreleased. That would have been a particularly delectable bonus.)

 

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The Small Batch edition is limited to 3,000 copies worldwide. Each pressing is individually numbered and encased in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase featuring an acrylic inset of the original artwork. The vinyl disc — extractable through a frictionless ribbon pull-tab — is housed in a reproduction of the album’s original, tip-on jacket and protected by an archival-quality, anti-static, non-scratching inner sleeve. 

 

This edition has new liner notes by Yours Truly, who is jazzed to note (apologies for the lack of modesty) that Craft’s publicity regards me as “the foremost Guaraldi historian.” That’s pretty cool.

So … fatten up your bank account, because it’s gonna be an expensive couple of months! 

Tidbits from Record World

I recently discovered a searchable online archive devoted to Record World, which — during its reign, from 1946 to 1982 — was one of the three primary U.S. weekly music industry trade publications, alongside Billboard and Cash Box. Record World actually debuted under the name Music Vendor, then switched in 1964, and continued under that new name until its final issue (April 10, 1982).

The archive is an obvious labor of love, with (thus far) most of its content running from spring 1964 to end of publication. Guaraldi likely wouldn’t have been more than an occasional blip until 1960 or ’61, but I’m sure he’d have been mentioned a lot in 1962 and ’63; I hope those issues will be added to the archive at some future time.

 

Meanwhile, a search on Vince turned up a couple dozen results, a few of which are worth noting here.

 

Talk about luck: The sole 1962 issue in the archive — June 23 — includes early mention of Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, as a coveted “Album Pick.” The brief write-up certainly is encouraging:

Pianist Guaraldi has a cleverly swinging, inventively saleable jazz product here. There is Brazilian music blending Latin African rhythms which were featured in tunes presented in this 1959 Cannes Film Festival winning pic. Proper exploitation could make it a chart album; it has the musical ingredients.

 

Mind you, this was a month before San Francisco’s Melody Sales issued a press release extolling the album, and another couple months before the impact of Sacramento radio station KROY’s success with “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” began to have a national impact. That makes Music Vendor quite prescient.

 

Moving ahead…

 

Now as Record World, the 9/25/65 issue’s “Money Music” column includes this brief item: “Much good music play in S.F. on ‘Theme to Grace’ — Vince Guaraldi, Fantasy — plus other areas.” Two months later, on November 27, the same column amplified the message: “ ‘Theme for [sic] Grace,’ Vince Guaraldi, Fantasy, selling well in Chicago and Detroit off good music play (plus California).”

 

These are the only industry mentions I’ve ever seen, regarding this particular Guaraldi tune’s chart and business activity. Pretty cool!

 

Elsewhere in that same issue, Record World says very nice things about Guaraldi’s just-released soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas:

 

Guaraldi plays the jazz score of the new cartoon coming by for Christmas consumption. Most of the album is Guaraldi improvisations on familiar seasonal standards and carols — all getting fresh treatment from the piano player. The movie should give buyers a big push toward counters.

 

(Given publication lead time, this proves review copies were sent out at least two weeks prior to December 4, which has long been assumed the album’s public release date.)

 

Moving forward to December 3, 1966, reviewer Del Shields waxed enthusiastic about Live at El Matador:

Eastern jazz fans have not had a chance to hear Bola Sete. Out on the West Coast, Bola is the “in thing,” and this album could be one of the big sleepers of the year. Guaraldi, whose “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” was a monster chart item a few seasons ago, lends sympathetic support to this Brazilian guitarist, and the result is pure pleasure. Again, the excitement of the crowd helps so much to project the feeling of “you are there” on quite a session. “Black Orpheus Suite” is particularly outstanding.

 

The 10/7/67 issue includes an intriguing little item, buried within an article which discusses the recent sale of Fantasy and Galaxy Records to Saul Zaentz. In a paragraph highlighting future activity, Zaentz mentions an “eight-LP release for October and November, featuring new albums by,” among others, Guaraldi. That never happened, and there’s no indication that Guaraldi had a new album ready to be released on such short notice. (Guaraldi’s final Fantasy album was the aforementioned Live at El Matador, released a year earlier.) And it’s odd that Zaentz would issue such a statement, given that Guaraldi was in the midst of suing to be released from his Fantasy contract, which was indeed dissolved just a few months later, on December 27.

 

Guaraldi didn’t waste any time. Record World’s 4/13/68 issue features a short article headlined “WB-7A Signs Guaraldi,” which reads, in part:

 

Vince Guaraldi, composer of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” and the musical scores of the Charlie Brown television specials, has been signed to an exclusive contract as an artist by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Records Inc., announces Joe Smith, Vice President and general manager.

 

Guaraldi, one of the more recent contributors responsible for interpretive jazz in church halls and theater, will produce his own sessions at Warners.

 

It’s nice to see an early article that acknowledges the impact of Guaraldi’s Grace Cathedral Mass.

 

Moving ahead again, the 1/17/70 issue includes one of the very few reviews I’ve seen of Alma-Ville, the final album Guaraldi released during his lifetime:

That subtle, fluid melodic mind of Vince Guaraldi’s is at it again. Vince has come up with some exquisite melodies on this album, and plays them better than anybody else can, or probably ever will. He also does a striking guitar solo. Watch every cut.

 

(Goodness; you can’t ask for better than that!)

 

The final Guaraldi entry is somewhat bittersweet, as it comes more than a year after his passing in early 1976. The 12/24/77 issue features a round-up of “good Christmas records” by columnists David McGee and Barry Taylor. Along with paragraphs devoted to Elvis’ Christmas Album, Phil Spector’s Christmas Album, Merry Christmas: The Supremes and several others, we get this endorsement of A Charlie Brown Christmas:

 

Nothing like it anywhere. Vince Guaraldi fused classical, pop and jazz in writing the mellowest of scores for the Emmy Award-winning television show. Light and lyrical, with boundless good humor, it is enough to make you believe in Santa Claus and man’s inherent goodness.

 

We now take for granted that Guaraldi’s score for that cherished Peanuts special has become a must-play item every December … but it’s nice to see that Record World, way back in 1977, already was trumpeting its merits as a holiday chestnut. 

Bits & bobs

Photo courtesy of Peggy Tillman

Ever more research resources continue to appear online, and each new discovery often adds a tantalizing nugget — or two, or 20 — to Guaraldi’s career. My most recent find is the California Digital Newspaper Collection, which seems devoted primarily to small, late 19th- and early 20th-century regional newspapers. But the database also includes a healthy number of high school and college newspapers, which delivered some nice nuggets. Several more stops on the Guaraldi/Sete Quartet’s October 1965 California college tour were added to my Guaraldi timeline, and — better yet — a few of the colleges publicized and reviewed the performances.

It’s always fun to see how Guaraldi was perceived at the time, and what he played, and — if interviewed — what he discussed.

 

The quartet performed at Sacramento City College on October 12. Five days earlier, the campus newspaper — The Pony Express — published an article to help promote the upcoming concert. Most of the information clearly was lifted from the publicity packet that the college received ahead of time, which must have been the source of this intriguing second sentence:

 

Pianist Guaraldi and Sete were ordered to combine their acts by “President” Dizzy Gillespie, after they appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962.

 

I possess copies of several Guaraldi publicity packets, which became more informative as the 1960s progressed; I’ve never before seen that statement. It’s true that Gillespie “discovered” Sete in the spring of 1962, while the latter was performing solo at San Francisco’s Sheraton Palace. And yes, Guaraldi and Sete both performed at the fifth annual Monterey Jazz Festival, in late September … but separately. Sete subsequently joined Gillespie’s band long enough to be part of the trumpeter’s next album, New Wave. Sete then flew to New York City and fronted his own trio at the Park-Sheraton Hotel for four months. When that gig concluded, he returned to San Francisco and began a seven-week solo stint at Sugar Hill. According to Fantasy Records’ then-“official” biography of Sete, written by jazz critic Russ Wilson, that’s where Guaraldi caught up with Sete in July 1963.

 

No mention of Gillespie’s helpful “edict,” although it certainly could have been an encouraging suggestion, at some point.

 

Further along in the same Pony Express article, the anonymous author injects a bit of opinion:

 

Guaraldi rose to national attention after KROY (a Sacramento station) disc jockey Tony Bigg played the “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” track from a Guaraldi recording of jazz impressions of the film Black Orpheus.

 

The recording was surprisingly accepted by the teenagers who make or break popular records.

 

You gotta love that second sentence. “Surprisingly”?

 

The article concludes with the following promise of things to come:

 

Recently, Guaraldi composed music for a Mass at the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and he will soon complete another composition, “San Francisco Suite.”

 

Alas, we know that didn’t happen.

 

Photo courtesy of Peggy Tillman

The quartet’s performance was reviewed in The Pony Express — again anonymously — on October 21. The writer noted that the set list included “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” two “Jazz Impressions of Charlie Brown,” a “delightful” rendition of the Jimmie Rodgers tune “The World I Used to Know,” and a “swingy waltz” called “Skating.”

That’s the only reference I’ve found, to “The World I Used to Know”; Guaraldi never recorded it on an album. But the presence of “Skating” is more of an eye-opener, as it likely means that sparkling jazz waltz was a regular part of the entire tour’s set list … a couple of months before it debuted for the world in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

 

One of the tour’s final stops — perhaps the final stop — was at Citrus College, in Glendora, on October 29. The performance was reviewed on November 5 in the Citrus College Clarion, and journalist Frank Cernelli combined that coverage with an interview with Guaraldi.

 

The lengthy article includes these tidbits:

 

[Guaraldi] also plays, but not professionally, the guitar and organ, and is building a harpsichord in his spare time. “I like putting things together,” he declared.

 

……..

 

After finishing a round of 26 California college concerts, [Guaraldi] will tour Oregon. He is also considering the possibility of touring England early next year.

 

……..

 

Summing up his musical philosophy, [Guaraldi] said, “I strive for freedom of musical expression, and clarity of thought.”

 

That final remark is a bit … well … pompous, and seems to have more to do with Zen meditation than performing jazz. But, whatever.

 

Building a harpsichord, eh? Could be true; if so, he may even have used it during local gigs.

 

He may well have toured Oregon in November 1965; I have absolutely no information about his movements that month. (I need to find a comparable Oregon digital newspaper collection!) But he definitely never made it to England in early 1966, or any time thereafter.

And that’s it for now. 

Orpheus Rising

My friend Scott recently posed an intriguing question:

 

Was Guaraldi the first jazz artist to cover the music from Black Orpheus in an album?

 

The initial assumption is to say yes, due to the timeline. Although the film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1959 — where it took the Palme d’Or — it didn’t reach the States until a screening at the San Francisco International Film Festival, on November 24 that same year. General release came a month later, on December 21; it went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film on April 4, 1960.

 

Guaraldi likely had seen the film several times by then. “I dug the soundtrack, and I dug ‘Samba de Orpheus,’ the tune and that scene in the movie,” he said to Ralph Gleason, several years later. “I was playing ‘Samba de Orpheus’ for a long time before I ever put [the notion of an album] together.”

 

That means he must’ve been performing that tune (and others from the film?) since early 1960, because he “put the notion together” in the summer of ’61, when he cut a demo tape of the four primary Jobim/Bonfa selections — “Samba de Orpheus,” “Manha de Carnaval,” “O Nosso Amor” and “A Felicidade” — with bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey. He shopped the tape to Capitol Records and then Columbia Records, both of which turned him down; he then snagged a one-album contract from Fantasy in early autumn. The resulting album, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, was recorded in November 1961 and February ’62, and released on April 18, 1962.

 

So … could somebody else have moved faster?

Flautist Herbie Mann certainly came close. His album Right Now, which includes a cover of "Manha de Carnaval," was recorded in March and April 1962. Alas, it wasn't released until November.

 

Mann aside, the most likely suspect, at that point in time, was Stan Getz. He grew infatuated with bossa nova in the early 1960s, and devoted several albums to that rapidly emerging genre. (That said, his iconic collaboration with Astrud Gilberto on “The Girl from Ipanema” wasn’t released until May 1964, although it had been recorded a year earlier.) And yes, his album Big Band Bossa Nova includes a cover of “Manha de Carnaval.” But the tracks were recorded August 27-28, 1962, and the album didn’t debut until October. Guaraldi beat him by half a year.

 

Next up for consideration: Quincy Jones. His album, also confusingly titled Big Band Bossa Nova — most famous these days for having introduced “Soul Bossa Nova,” now better known as Austin Powers’ theme — also includes a cover of “Manha de Carnaval.” Ah, but — once again — the tracks were recorded between June and September of 1962, and the album was released in November.

Trombonist Bob Brookmeyer's Trombone Jazz Samba includes covers of "Samba de Orfeu," "Manha de Carnaval" and "A Felicidade." Alas, the tracks were recorded in August and September 1962, and the album didn't appear until November.

 

This brings us to Ramsey Lewis, a veritable music-making machine by this point in his career. His trio’s Argo album, Bossa Nova, includes covers of both “Samba de Orpheus” and “Maha [sic] de Carnaval.” But he, too, came later to the party; the tracks were recorded on September 22 and 25, 1962, and the album also was released in November.

(On a sidebar note, during the research for this post, I noted — with delight — that this Ramsey Lewis Trio album also includes a cover of Guaraldi’s “Whirlpool,” with which I was previously unaware. And which immediately prompted an update of this post.)

Guaraldi's colleague Bola Sete seems a logical candidate, and yes: His album Bossa Nova includes a cover of "Manha de Carnaval." But it was recorded in October 1962, and not released until February 1963.

As 1962 drew to a close, George Shearing hit the studio in December, to record the tracks for his album Shearing Bossa Nova; it also includes a cover of "Manha de Carnaval." But, again, the album wasn't released until May 1963.

December 1962 also found Luiz Bonfá in the studio, no doubt wanting to take advantage of the music craze he helped ignite. Luiz Bonfá Plays and Sings Bossa Nova — arranged by no less than Lalo Schifrin, early in his career — includes a cover of "Manha de Carnaval." The album debuted in April 1963.

 

“Samba de Orfeu” popped up on Bud Shank’s Brasamba!, also released in April 1963. That tune also appeared on Bill Perkins’ Bossa Nova with Strings Attached, released the following month.

 

By this point, you must be remembering that Guaraldi’s friend and former “boss,” Cal Tjader, had gravitated toward Latin music in the late 1950s; surely he would have gotten a jump on his one-time pianist. But no: Although Tjader’s album Soña Libré includes a cover of “Manha de Carnaval,” the tracks weren’t laid down until January 28-30, 1963; the album didn’t drop until May that year.

 

Paul Desmond was next; his album Take Ten includes covers of both “Samba de Orfeu” and “Theme from Black Orpheus.” The tracks was recorded in June 1963, and the album debuted in October.

 

Interest subsequent expanded exponentially:

• “Manha de Carnaval” is on Gerry Mulligan’s Night Lights (December 1963).

• “Manha de Carnaval” is on the Modern Jazz Quartet’s The Sheriff (April 1964).

• “Samba de Orfeu” is on Ray Anthony’s Hit Songs to Remember (May 1966).

• “Samba de Orpheus” and “Manha de Carnaval” are on Charlie Byrd’s Byrdland (January 1967).

• “Manha de Carnaval” and “Samba de Orfeu” are on Oscar Peterson’s Soul Español (March 1967).

• A lengthy Black Orpheus medley — with “Manha de Carnaval,” “A Felicidade” and “Samba De Orfeu” — is on Bola Sete at the Monterey Jazz Festival (July 1967).

 

And so forth. Both “Manha de Carnaval” and “Samba De Orfeu” have become jazz standards.

 

So, does that mean Guaraldi scored first?

Emphatically ... not!

Harry James and his Orchestra released an MGM single in February 1961 (!). The A-side selling point is "Jersey Bounce," and the B-side is -- drumroll, please -- "Theme from Orfeu Negro (Manha de Carnaval)." James therefore wins the lottery.

And, indeed, Guaraldi wasn't even second. Hard bop saxophonist Rocky Boyd and his quintet hit the studio in March 1961, to record their album Ease It; the six tracks include a cover of "Samba de Orfeu." The album was released in mid-September.

 

Saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s came close with his third album, Wayning Moments, which includes a cover of the Black Orpheus theme. (The digital re-release features a second take.) The original LP was recorded on November 2 and 6, 1961; it hit stores in July 1962. 

But close doesn't count. We now know that Harry James and Rocky Boyd did indeed beat Guaraldi to the punch.

Ralph Gleason: Prophet

I've been in the research tank for the past month, thanks to the San Francisco Chronicle finally being available as a searchable online archive. That option didn't exist for most newspapers when I gathered information for my Guaraldi biography, back in 2008 through 2011. Since then, just about every newspaper — large and small — has been granted that sort of Internet presence. Some are free to the general public; some are free when accessed via libraries (particularly university libraries); some are locked behind the paywalls at newsbank.com or newspapers.com.

During the past decade, as the archives of newspapers of particular importance to Guaraldi's career became available — the San Francisco Examiner, the Oakland Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the San Mateo Times, among others — I added club performance details and other bits of information to my Guaraldi timeline. Sometimes a particularly juicy nugget prompted an entry in this blog.

But, maddeningly, the Chronicle — the most important source of Guaraldiana — failed to enter the 21st century.

Until quite recently.

"Giddy" is a good description of how I felt, upon discovery and subsequent exploration. When the dust had settled, after several weeks, I had downloaded more than 250 PDF newspaper pages. Most contained hitherto unknown information; many amplified — and even corrected — existing data that was either incomplete, or totally wrong. As a result, the Guaraldi timeline has been enhanced significantly, and it will continue to expand as I work my way through all the data.

However, this particular Ralph Gleason column deserves a showcase all its own.

This was published on July 5, 1962. Bear in mind, that was not quite three months after the release of Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus; and two months before fellow Chronicle columnist Hal Schaefer reported, on September 15, that Guaraldi had become "the first West Coast jazz pianist to sell over 50,000 albums in less than five weeks."

Gleason's column is noteworthy both for its prescience, and for the unxpected "confession" he makes in the third paragraph, and for the fact that "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" is not mentioned. 

Enjoy!

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The question in local jazz circles, these days, is "Will success spoil Vince Guaraldi?"

The diminutive Italian leprechaun seems to have a hit on his hands, with his new Fantasy LP, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus (Fantasy 3337). Already there is action throughout the country; in some areas, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, it has "taken off," as the trade describes it.

When Vince asked if I would write the notes for the LP, I was a bit hesitant because, although I had dug the Guaraldi treatment of the Orpheus music when I had heard him play it in the clubs, I had not always dug the Guaraldi trio. So when I had a chance to listen to the tapes, I was delightfully surprised. They were a gas, not only for the Orpheus music, but also for the originals by Vince, and for the great version of "Since I Fell for You."

Some albums have "hit" written on them, or so you think when you first hear it. Vince's LP made that impression on me, and I am delighted to find that it is coming true. A single from the album has been widely played on the air, and might even take off on its own.

Offers for the trio's services are coming in now, though Vince still has bitter memories of last Christmas, when he was out of work. His may be the latest in the line of San Francisco groups to break through the sound barrier and become a commercial jazz property. Along with the money that this brings, there are lots of pressures, so the question, "Will success spoil Vince Guaraldi?", is not as idle as it might sound.

Vince, however, treats it with his characteristic flippancy.

"Of course it will," he says, "but I'll have plenty of company."

Fools' gold?

Perform a Google search on the terms “Vince Guaraldi” and “gold record,” and the first result is a segment of the musician’s allmusic.com biography, which reads (in part) “… ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind’ became a hit, rising to the Top 20 of the pop charts and earning Guaraldi a gold record, as well as a Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition.”

 

(Actually, the song peaked at No. 22 on February 23, 1963, so it was in the Top 30, not the Top 20. But that’s another matter.)

 

Read one of links further down, and you’ll see this sentence: “His breakthrough album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus (1962), which earned him a gold record, etc.”

 

Performs searches on various permutations of “Guaraldi,” “gold record,” “Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus” and “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” and you’ll find countless posts and articles that repeat one or the other of these two claims.

 

So … which is correct?

 

Answer: Technically, neither.

 

Despite “accepted wisdom,” Guaraldi didn’t win an official gold record for either the album or the song. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which maintains a handy (searchable) “Gold & Platinum” page, neither ever hit gold status … not even to this day.

 

Which begs the question: From where did this misinformation spring?

 

The answer is … complicated.

 

I was prompted to investigate as a result of ongoing correspondence with Alec Huntley, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Texas, whose upcoming dissertation is titled The Guaraldi Sound: The Musical Devices that Characterize Vince Guaraldi’s Improvisational and Compositional Style. We’ve been emailing since February, and he has hit me with occasional questions and requests for clarifications. (Alec and his dissertation — when it’s published — will be the subject of an upcoming blog post.)

 

The merde hit the fan — although neither of us initially knew that — just a few days ago, when Alec queried a quote from journalist Barry Gordon, writing in the February 6, 2009, issue of The Scotsman — reproduced in my book — which says, in part, “Guaraldi was the first jazz musician to have a gold record; one of the first to win a Grammy; one of the first musicians to play a stadium; and one of, if not the, first artists to have their music played in space.”

 

In trying to verify the gold record claim — something I obviously should have done a long time ago — Alec came up with the fact that Glenn Miller was the first jazz musician to win a gold record, in 1942, for “Chatanooga Choo-Choo.”

 

Hmmm, I thought. Well, that was a gold for a single. Guaraldi’s gold must’ve been for the album, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.

 

But no. As I quickly discovered, the RIAA database shows no such thing. Going for additional verification, Billboard magazine also had no indication, in any 1962 or ’63 issues, that Guaraldi had won a gold record.

 

The RIAA database does note that Dave Brubeck’s Time Out album hit gold status on April 19, 1963. Furthermore, it is well-known that “Take Five” — from that album — was the first jazz single to attain gold-record status.

 

As it happens, I have access to archival data not available to the general public. Guaraldi and his mother saved everything relevant to his career, in the 1950s and ’60s. Thanks to Vince’s son David, I was able to view and copy all this data, while compiling information for my book. These included two BMI certificates for “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” to acknowledge “over one million broadcast performances” and, somewhat later, “over two million broadcast performances.” (Maddeningly, neither certificate is dated.) I also saw the certificate for the Grammy Award that Guaraldi won for “Fate,” as Best Original Jazz Composition, along with the actual Grammy Award.

 

No sign of any gold record, or certificate acknowledging same. And it certainly would have been present, if it existed.

 

But this still didn’t answer the key question: From where did this misinformation spring?

 

I have a theory.

 

The confusion may have originated in Anatomy of a Hit, Ralph Gleason’s three-part 1964 film about Vince and “Fate.” The second segment, “We’re Getting’ Action,” concludes as Guaraldi good-naturedly climbs into the same back-stacks cubbyhole where he posed for the cover photo of his first Fantasy album, The Vince Guaraldi Trio. Once properly ensconced, Max Weiss hands Guaraldi a “gold record,” signifying — as Weiss explains — “sales of over 300,000 copies of ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind.’ ”

 

Ah, but — at that time — official RIAA gold records were presented for albums or singles that achieved $1 million in retail sales … and 300,000 singles wouldn’t have come close to that total. (RIAA gold records were re-defined in 1976, to indicate sales of 500,000 units, either albums or singles.)

 

(Fantasy was no different than other labels, in this respect. Decca and RCA also presented their own in-house “gold records” in the 1940s and ’50s, as with the one mentioned above, given to Glenn Miller.)

 

Ergo, this was a nice gesture by Weiss, during a sequence clearly staged for Gleason’s film: an in-house “gold record” … and not an actual RIAA honor.

 

So, technically, yes; it’s true that Guaraldi was given a gold record. But it wasn’t a formally presented, RIAA-certified gold record.

 

This inaccuracy has blossomed ever since, gaining ever more credibility by the magnitude of Web exposure, and well-intentioned journalists who dutifully repeat the claim in almost every published overview of Guaraldi’s career.

 

I’m sorry to say, by including Gordon’s quote in my book — and failing to call attention to the distinction — I’m partially guilty for contributing to this ambiguity. Worse yet, I repeated this oversight in the brief Guaraldi bio I wrote for allaboutjazz.com: a reputable source that researchers would have no reason to question. (Rest assured, I’m taking steps to amend that, as these words are typed.)

 

Alas, as I’ve mentioned many times before, bad information circulates via the Internet far more rapidly, than efforts to rebut and correct it. I can only hope, with time, that this clarification/correction will propagate to the most important research outlets.

(It should be noted, by the way, that Guaraldi has earned three RIAA gold records posthumously: for the songs "Linus and Lucy" and "Christmas Time Is Here," and for the soundtrack album A Charlie Brown Christmas. The latter, in fact, has gone quadruple platinum.)

Eddie Duran: Guitar maestro

My fondest personal memory of jazz guitarist Eddie Duran came early in the summer of 2012. The Gods smiled upon me; I was able to hire him, drummer Colin Bailey, bassist Dean Reilly and pianist Jim Martinez for a performance at that year’s Beaglefest (an annual convention for fans of Charles M. Schulz and Peanuts).

Eddie Duran, "in the moment" during a private concert
June 30, 2012. (The arm at upper left belongs to
drummer Colin Bailey.)

It was a reunion of Vince Guaraldi’s former sidemen, from his “classic” early trios: Eddie and Dean, at Vince’s side for a lengthy gig at San Francisco’s hungry i nightclub, and while recording his first two Fantasy Records albums; and Colin, who with bassist Monty Budwig put Vince on the map with the release of 1962’s Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus and its breakout single, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” Jim, the (comparatively) young pianist who stood in for Vince that evening, likely couldn’t believe his good fortune. The appreciative audience definitely couldn’t believe it, as this quartet — never before having performed together, or even rehearsed — breezily powered through a couple hours of Guaraldi jazz classics. (Including, of course, plenty of Peanuts melodies.)

The three Guaraldi veterans were the epitome of graciousness. They joined us earlier in the evening for a banquet dinner, sitting at different tables in order to interact with as many attendees as possible. Once they started playing, a few hours later, they were wholly in the groove. As one would expect, distinct personalities emerged; Colin and Dean, all smiles, were quick with an occasional quip between — and sometimes even during — numbers. But Eddie was all business. his gaze was wholly absorbed by his guitar, particularly during his positively magical solos.

Several years earlier, he’d been one of my favorite interview subjects, while assembling the wealth of material for my Guaraldi biography. Eddie had a terrific memory for detail, and he vividly painted “word picture” descriptions of the hungry i environment, and the hilariously Spartan, spit-and-bailing-wire simplicity of the Fantasy recording sessions, circa mid-1950s. “[The first album] was recorded in the garage of a building south of Market. They didn’t do any extensive preparation for sound-proofing; it was just a bare garage … although they did spread some carpets on the floor.”

Eddie spun wonderful anecdotes about club gigs with Vince, several of which were much too coarse to have made it into my book. (I rapidly came to the conclusion that jazz musicians tell the best stories … and also the filthiest!) Eddie enjoyed a remarkably prolific career, with and beyond Vince, as this San Francisco Chronicle article recounts briefly. (Additional details, although still woefully incomplete, can be found at Wikipedia.)

Eddie was lucky enough to make a successful career out of doing what he loved, and he maintained a performance schedule right up to the very end. We lost him November 22, 94 years young. I like to think this was merely a change of venue, and that — somewhere, somehow — he has been reunited with Vince, and they’re both enjoying the most amazing jam sessions with all manner of other jazz cats.

Los Gatos memories

I live for letters like this one.

It actually came to my 5CP blog partner Scott, who forwarded it to me; I immediately got in touch with the writer, Mark, who (alas!) wasn't able to offer any additional details. But he readily granted permission to publish both his note and the photo he had sent with it.

I'll turn the rest of this post over to him.

*********

In December 2017, I had just finished my annual viewing of A Charlie Brown Christmas on a new Blu-Ray set I picked up at Costco, and saw Scott on the bonus feature "making of" documentary. That led me to a quick Internet search, and then your pages on Peanuts and Vince Guaraldi. Both were fun to look through, and are obviously labors of love. 

Mom brought home his Black Orpheus LP after hearing "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" somewhere on the radio — perhaps from the public television special about making the record — and we were both big Peanuts fans. My husband isn't, but he does appreciate the music, so I cut him some slack. (Some.)

In October 1967, my folks took me to the Old Town Theater in Los Gatos — we lived just a short ways away in San Jose, at the time — to see Guaraldi and his combo. For some reason we got there early, and ended up in the front row. Being 15, I was waiting for two songs: "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" and "Linus and Lucy." 

During the intermission, I asked someone on the stage if I could get him to autograph my program; they signed first, and then said Guaraldi was outside the theater, downstairs in a place called The Cellar. It was uncharacteristically bold for me, but — Instamatic in hand — I went looking for him. Found him, too ... and took a couple of snapshots, as he signed my program, which I still have, somewhere. Mom and Dad were both surprised that I'd gone off and done that, and so was I. I even asked if he was going to play "Linus and Lucy," and he said he would. When they launched into it after intermission, he looked down at me in the front row and smiled just a bit. It's a fond memory I'll never forget.

I found the snapshots a couple of years ago, and scanned them. Mom passed in January 2017, but I think of her a lot, naturally ... certainly that day, while watching the special for the first time without her.

Swingin' singles

Life brings constant surprises.

That's a good thing; it would be terrible to wake one morning, realizing that the world offered no more mysteries, no more unexpected answers.

Discovery is one of life's many spices.

Happily, I continue to discover new wonders about Guaraldi's life and recorded output. Some things come my way via helpful correspondents; other items wander across my path entirely by accident, usually while I'm seeking additional sources for some other piece of information.

Two recent finds, then: both concerning Guaraldi's recordings on 45 singles.

By now, we all know the story about how "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" was "discovered" by Tony Bigg, a DJ at KROY 1240 AM, in Sacramento, California. Having received a copy of Fantasy's single for Guaraldi's album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, Bigg played and enjoyed the A-side selection, "Samba de Orpheus." But he was totally knocked out by the B-side song, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," and played it as often as possible. He very likely sparked public awareness of the song, which quickly spread throughout the Golden State, and then the rest of the country, eventually earning Guaraldi a Grammy Award.

Okay, that's familiar history.

But here's my fresh question: Might Bigg have been playing a red vinyl 45?

It's also well-known that — during the label's early years — Fantasy Records got considerable mileage from its gimmick of issuing LPs on colored vinyl, generally red or blue. Old news.

Until a few weeks ago, however, I'd never heard of — let alone seen, or been lucky enough to own — a colored vinyl single.

And yet here it is, thanks to a recent eBay auction.

Fascinating, eh?

The question now is whether only promotional 45s were issued on red vinyl, and perhaps only the first printing of same. That seems logical, and they're certainly rare; standard singles of "Samba" and "Fate" are as common as blades of grass, and they pop up all over the place. This red one, though, is something truly special.

And it begs a question: Were any of Guaraldi's other Fantasy 45s released on colored vinyl?

I suspect not. Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus was the last Guaraldi LP originally released on colored vinyl — red (mono) and blue (stereo) — and Fantasy discontinued this practice shortly thereafter. In other words, all of Guaraldi's subsequent 45s were attached to LPs issued solely on standard black vinyl, so the singles would have been pressed the same way, also on black vinyl.

That was the first surprise.

Within a few days of my obtaining this little treasure, I learned about the existence of another hitherto-unknown Guaraldi 45, this one derived from the "storybook LP" released as a soundtrack, of sorts, for the 1969 big-screen film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Guaraldi's isolated score for this film remains a major unreleased item in the soundtrack world, a sad and frustrating story I detailed at great length in an earlier post.

To my knowledge, however, Columbia Records never released a single from this LP ... at least, not in the United States.

During a routine perusal of the Guaraldi titles referenced at the very handy Discogs site, I unexpectedly came across a listing for a French single (CBS 5399), released in 1970. The gatefold-style packaging is quite attractive, as you can see from the images here. The A-side contains Rod McKuen's title song, while the B-side is unusual for its presentation of two tracks: short versions of McKuen's "Champion Charlie Brown" and Guaraldi's "Snoopy on Ice" (actually "Skating").

Granted, Guaraldi's contribution runs a scant 95 seconds, but that's still enough for this disc to qualify for inclusion in Dr. Funk's library of 45s.

Assuming you can find one. As these words are typed, the aforementioned Discogs entry lists 10 people who'd like to find this little disc, while also showing the disheartening word "never" under "Last sold." I therefore suspect that finding a copy of this puppy might be even harder than landing "Fate" on red vinyl.

But — as I said above — what fun would life be, if we didn't have things to desire, and search for ... awaiting that golden moment of triumph, when...

Sigh. If only, right?