Nov 24 2008
Charlie Brown and a Jazz Classic
Even if you are new to jazz and claim you know nothing about it, I am willing to bet there are a number of jazz classics that your probably didn’t even know were jazz classics. Yesterday I mentioned the Dave Brubeck classic “Take Five.” More than likely you have heard that music in a movie or on a commercial.
Did you know that Charlie Brown is part of a jazz classic? If you have watched the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” every year you have heard and probably hummed or danced along with a tune that has become a jazz classic. The tune is actually called “Linus and Lucy” but you probably just think of it as “That Peanuts Song.”
A man named Vince Guaraldi created an album in 1964 called “Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown.” This is where “Linus and Lucy” first appeared. It wasn’t until the next year, 1965, when the tune was used as a key piece of music for the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that it truly became synonymous with Charlie Brown and his Peanuts friends. Since then the tune has become a part of the Peanuts cannon and has been featured in nearly every other Peanuts special since.
These days you hear it in stores over their music system. It’s been used in commercials. Even the Weather Channel has used it as background music while giving the local forecast. It has also be covered by many musicians since Guarabaldi and released several times. Even the Dave Matthews Band has a version of it.
Below is from an anniversary CD released in 1989. The version here is not the same one you hear on the show, but is performed by a more modern jazz legend named Dave Benoit. It invokes a nice Christmas feel, which is nice since I am still trying to deal with the fact that it’s the Christmas season.
