“Last night’s performance at The Dakota traces back to a television show from 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas. The music for that animated special – the first to be based on the Peanuts newspaper comic by Charles Schulz – was written by jazz composer and pianist Vince Guaraldi.
Guaraldi died far too young, at age 47, in 1976, after composing the music for more than a dozen Peanutsspecials and documentaries, many of which were big hits. Children took notice: in the liner notes of Wynton & Ellis Marsalis’s album Joe Cool’s Blues, Wynton wrote, “When I was a boy the only time you would hear jazz on television was when Charlie Brown came to town.” (The title of that album is itself a reference to the Peanuts character Snoopy.)
Another future musician whose life was changed by those TV specials was David Benoit, who noted last night that he had been a big fan of Charlie Brown. After seeing – and hearing – A Charlie Brown Christmas, he decided to become a jazz pianist. Decades later, he is one of the major figures in contemporary jazz, with dozens of albums – including Here’s to You, Charlie Brown!: 50 Great Years! (2000) – and three Grammy nominations to his name.”
BY: BRIAN BIX
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