Was Dave Brubeck Approached To Write The Original Peanuts Music?

[JSngry]

Just seems like a natural fit, Merry Christmas Charlie Brown on CBS, Brubeck on Columbia. Did that conversation ever happen at any point in the process that anybody knows of?

Not complaining about Vince Guaraldi, mind you. Just wondering about Snoopy as Paul Desmond, things like that.

[xybert]

Not sure if he was approached in the early days, but funnily enough:

http://peanuts.wikia.com/wiki/Quiet_as_the_Moon

"Quiet as the Moon is an album by Dave Brubeck. It is a soundtrack for the episode "The NASA Space Station" from This Is America, Charlie Brown."

[JSngry]

Yeah, I saw that. Interesting.

What triggered the question was I was listening to Pandora the other night and "Everybody's Jumping" from Time Out came on, and I was like, wow, this kinda sounds like Charlie Brown music...then thinking about Brubeck's sompositions and paino style in general, you know, thought start connecting, finally go to Snoopy as Paul Desmond (woulda' been perfect, right?) and then...CBS, how did Fantasy end up with that album, and now...how did vince Guarlidi get the gig anyway? He did epochal cultural landmark work, so no problem, jsut wondering how it cane to be, really. Did "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" have that ball rolling at that particular time?

[GA Russell]

I think I read that Lee Mendelson was the decision-maker in this regard.  He heard Cast Your Fate on the car radio, and decided to contact Guaraldi to see if there might be some interest.

[xybert]

I think I read that Lee Mendelson was the decision-maker in this regard.  He heard Cast Your Fate on the car radio, and decided to contact Guaraldi to see if there might be some interest.

Yup.

[JSngry]

Ah, career momentum!

Still wonder if CBS at some point said, hey, we should have this on the label we own...but maybe not? Wasn't the Charlie Brown Christmas thing viewed as sort of a gamble before it hit the air?

[xybert]

I know it's been discussed before (if not here then elsewhere), but how much of an influence was Guaraldi on Jarrett? Was a just a flavour that was in the air at the time, pure coincidence or was Guaraldi a direct influence? 

[JSngry]

Never heard that before, always heard that Jarrett was copping hard from Paul bley (which I think holds more than a little true). As far as the Guaraldi thing...don't know? Possibly? Guaraldi himself seemed to me to be a personal offshoot of various soul-jazz pianists, but looking at his history, time/place, he would have been in the San Francisco area when Brubeck was, so who knows how that worked out? Re-listening to Brubeck lately has highlighted some things in his playing that I long thought were one "thing", but now...maybe something else? All I know is that if you believe the histories, there was not really much of a "modern jazz" scene at all in SF in the late-40s/early 50s, everything was Trad revival, so the modern guys kind had their own space to fill.

not to say that it was an influence on anybody, but the whole "twangy" jazz piano thing in general always seemed like an untentended side-effect of Floyd Cramer somehow. Although people like to hear it as "gospel", it's really a different inflection, although most everything else lines up. So...I don't know. Music is weird like that sometimes!

[duaneiac]

I thought the story was that Lee Mendelson had made a short documentary film about Charles Schulz, that for some reason never was picked up for television.  He had contacted Vince Guaraldi to do musical interludes for that project.  All three men lived in the SF Bay Area, so it made some sense.  Then when Mr. Mendelson and Mr. Schulz began tossing around the idea of an animated Peanuts TV special, they recalled the music that Mr. Guaraldi had done for the earlier project and since they liked that, they asked him to do some music for the animated project.

I don't think any one involved in creating the project or at CBS had any idea that what they had on their hands would become a holiday tradition (now 50 years old).  they probably all viewed it as a one time broadcast, that would be aired and then forgotten like most Christmas specials.  So I don't think any one at CBS (and by 1965 were not the broadcast division and the recording company division pretty much separate entities?) would have had the foresight to think, "We've got to hold onto  the music rights to this cash cow!"

[JSngry]

Didn't know the back story about Mendelson & Guaraldi, that's interesting, thanks!

[Ted O'Reilly]

I don't think I'm misremembering, but I'm sure in my pop-radio days c.1962/64 I had a 45 of Cast Your Fate that was just the trio, and that later it came out with strings added.  Could anyone confirm my five-decade memory?   And I  wonder if that might have been just about the last instrumental to make a Top 40 list?

As the definition of pop-radio for me then, the Programme Director wanted the station sound to be Bobby Darin's "18 Yellow Roses", but I fought for Louis' "Hello Dolly".  I mean, it was Louis! (And late night when the PD wasn't listening dropped in :"Every Day" (Basie/Williams) as an oldie.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i forgot about that album but you are right brubeck did that, but peanuts is really guaraldi territory.i think others have redone them too, i think david benoit did a guarlidi tribute album in the peanuts style, prob others.  

[mjzee]

Here's a pretty comprehensive telling of the story, courtesy of http://fivecentsplease.org/tv/peanuts-tv.html#HISTORY

How Did The Specials Get Started?

In 1963, Lee Mendelson, an independent television producer, contacted Charles Schulz with the idea of producing a documentary about Schulz and Peanuts. While Schulz had received several offers from Hollywood for a feature film or TV series, none of the offers had appealed to him. But he'd seen and enjoyed Mendelson's 1963 documentary on Willie Mays, so he agreed to meet with Mendelson.

They decided to include some short trial animations in the documentary (titled "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," a title that was later reused for the 1969 theatrical movie). These sequences were created by Bill Melendez, a friend of Schulz's who had done the animation for some Ford commercials starring the Peanuts gang. Unfortunately, Mendelson and Schulz were unable to convince any network or sponsor to buy the documentary when they were done.

But in May 1965, Coca-Cola, remembering the animated sequences from the documentary when it had been shopped to them, expressed an interest in sponsoring an animated Peanuts Christmas special. In the next six months, Schulz, Mendelson, and Melendez worked hard to create the special which became "A Charlie Brown Christmas."

Several important choices were made during the first show's development that have influenced all shows to come.

Schulz, Melendez, and Mendelson decided to have real children perform the voices of the show's characters, instead of the customary practice of adults pretending to be children. They also decided, with the exception of Charlie Brown and Linus, to use amateurs with no previous experience.

(Charlie Brown was voiced by Peter Robbins, and Linus by Christopher Shea, who were both established child actors, although arguably they are now both best known for their voices on the first five Peanuts specials.)

Since the children's voices change as they grow, every few years a new set of voices needs to be found. Melendez tries to match the original voices as closely as possible. New voices have been siblings of the previous actors, children of the production staff, and children chosen from auditions held at schools near the production offices in Northern California.

Snoopy presented something of a problem. Originally the animators considered showing thought bubbles with words, as in the strip, but they realized young children would be unable to read these. They considered using a "funny voice" to verbalize the thoughts, but it didn't seem right either. In the end, they decided to play Snoopy in pantomime, "emulating the great Harpo Marx." When Snoopy does make a noise -- a bark, a howl, a grunt -- he is performed by Bill Melendez in all shows so far. (Melendez also performs Woodstock's "voice.")

Schulz, Melendez and Mendelson also decided to hire jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi to write the music for the show, and this was so successful that he wrote and performed the music for the first 14 specials (until his death), and his music has greatly influenced the music for shows after that.

Once "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was complete, CBS previewed it, and expressed apprehension. The show's slow pace (compared with other cartoons), the religious message, and the amateur voices didn't sit well with them. But when "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was aired, it was an immediate critical and popular success - it received a 45 share (meaning almost half the televisions on that night tuned in to it)! Four months later the show received the Peabody Award for "outstanding children's and youth's program," and another month after that, an Emmy award.

Thus a whole series of specials was launched, each written by Charles Schulz, produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, and animated by Melendez's studio.

The original documentary ("A Boy Named Charlie Brown") was updated and broadcast in 1969.

For a more detailed history, see the book "A Charlie Brown Christmas - The Making of a Tradition", by Lee Mendelson, HarperCollins, 2000.

[Most of this section was adapted from the book "Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz," by Lee Mendelson, published by The World Publishing Company in 1970.]

 

 

[JSngry]

I'd sure like to see Snoopy as Paul Desmond. Take Joe Cool, lose the shades, replace them with horn-rims, put the Desmond face on there, tilt the head, and make the horn smaller. And then find some lost recording of Desmond playing "Christmas Time Is Here" to play behind the image.

 

How is that not Parallel Jazz Universe Perfection?

 

Paul, oh Paul, where are you Paul?

[Teasing the Korean]

When I was 12 or 13, I got Dave Brubeck's Greatest Hits.  It was my first jazz album, not counting my parents' albums.  

I felt very adult listening to it.  

One day, my parents visited their friends, and I went along and hung out with their teenage daughter.  She was into music, so I brought a couple of records with me.

She put on a Judas Priest album.  I didn't like it. 

After it ended, I put on Dave Brubeck's Greatest Hits.  I distinctly remember her saying, when "The Duke" came on, "This sounds like Peanuts music."

Edited June 5, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[ghost of miles]

Doublechecked my memory from putting together the Night Lights Guaraldi show many years ago and it held: Lee Mendelson did indeed first call Brubeck about scoring the first Peanuts special (“A Boy Named Charlie Brown”). Brubeck was busy and suggested Cal Tjader, who was also too busy to do it. “Years later, they both said they wished they hadn’t been busy!” (2003 Mendelson TV interview, cited in Derrick Bang’s Guaraldi book, pg 161).  Then the serendipitous story of Mendelson driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and hearing Al Jazzbo Collins on KSFO playing “Cast Your Fate To The Wind.”

Edited June 7, 2021 by ghost of miles

[GA Russell]

On 9/6/2015 at 1:16 AM, Ted O'Reilly said:

I don't think I'm misremembering, but I'm sure in my pop-radio days c.1962/64 I had a 45 of Cast Your Fate that was just the trio, and that later it came out with strings added.  Could anyone confirm my five-decade memory?   And I  wonder if that might have been just about the last instrumental to make a Top 40 list?

 

Ted, the strings version was by a different outfit called Sounds Orchestral.

Regarding Top 40 instrumentals, certainly some of The Tijuana Brass hits came after 1965.  Cannonball's Mercy, Mercy, Mercy came later, as did Ramsey Lewis's hits.

[Teasing the Korean]

7 hours ago, GA Russell said:

Ted, the strings version was by a different outfit called Sounds Orchestral.

Regarding Top 40 instrumentals, certainly some of The Tijuana Brass hits came after 1965.  Cannonball's Mercy, Mercy, Mercy came later, as did Ramsey Lewis's hits.

To say nothing of "Love is Blue," "The Good the Bad and the Ugly" "The Hustle," "A Fifth of Beethoven," "Rockit," and many more.

[mikeweil]

On 7.6.2021 at 7:32 AM, GA Russell said:

Ted, the strings version was by a different outfit called Sounds Orchestral.

 

Kenny Clare played drums on this version.

[Teasing the Korean]

I have a couple of those Sounds Orchestral albums, and they are really good, their James Bond knockoff album in particular.

[Teasing the Korean]

I'm trying to image an alternate universe in which "Linus and Lucy" and "Christmastime is Here" don't exist.

But in our universe, we are missing the classics that Brubeck composed for those segments.  

[DMP]

I think “Cast...” was the ‘B’ side of the single. “Samba de Orfeu” was the song that was originally being pushed, an attempt to cash in early on the emerging appetite for Brazilian music. 

[mikeweil]

FWIW, i recommend this well researched biography for all things Guaraldi:

[mikeweil]

On 6.9.2015 at 4:25 PM, JSngry said:

How is that not Parallel Jazz Universe Perfection?

 

It's now on my desktop screen.