Jazzy 'Charlie Brown Christmas' swings on after 55 years
There were plenty of reasons Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack to ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ shouldn't have worked
NEW YORK (AP) — The Mendelson family would love to find the envelope where their father, Lee, scribbled some lyrics to jazz musician Vince Guaraldi's composition “Christmas Time is Here” for an animated TV special featuring the “Peanuts” gang in 1965.
The producer always said it had taken less than half an hour to write, and he likely tossed the scrap of paper away. He was in a rush. Everything was rushed. No one even knew, once the special aired, whether it would ever be seen again.
Instead, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” became an indelible holiday tradition and so, too, has Guaraldi's music — perhaps even more so.
“Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas without hearing that album in the background,” said Derrick Bang, author of the biography “Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.”
