Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Before he met Charles Schulz and Charlie Brown, Vince Guaraldi was a household name in jazz because of his work with Cal Tjader and his success with "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" from his Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus album. The CBS television program A Charlie Brown Christmas spread Guaraldi’s fame far beyond jazz households. First broadcast in 1965, the show is one of the best-loved animated specials in TV history, repeated year after year during the Christmas season. Charlie Brown’s struggles against the crassness of holiday commercialism in search of the true meaning of Christmas mirrored Guaraldi’s philosophy of music. Schulz’s story struck in Guaraldi a responsive chord, many chords. The simplicity, the rightness, of the music he crafted to reflect the personalities of Charlie, Lucy, Snoopy, Linus and the rest of the Peanuts gang is greatly responsible for the success of the production. There are no choirs, no strings, no sounding brass, no tympani rolls; just occasional children’s voices and jazz trio music written and played with perfection and sensitivity.

"…If the TV sound version of this is embedded in your sonic DNA as it is in mine, when you hear how superbly well recorded it really is, you'll be in for a more than pleasant shock. Guaraldi's piano, along with the bass and drums, are given a natural, relaxed recorded treatment in the magical mid-sixties analog recording style. The Hoffman/Gray, Gray/Hoffman collaboration yields another truly special-sounding LP. Even if you only whip this out around Christmas time, it's worth picking up, as it will put you in a real Christmas mood, not an artificial one." Music = 8/11; Sound = 10/11 – Michael Fremer, www.musicangle.com

	1. O Tannenbaum
	2. What Child Is This
	3. My Little Drum
	4. Linus and Lucy
	5. Christmas Time Is Here [Instrumental]
	6. Christmas Time Is Here [Vocal Version]
	7. Skating
	8. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
	9. Christmas Is Coming
	10. Für Elise
	11. The Christmas Song

Customer Reviews (4.92 Stars) 12 person(s) rated this product.

Awesome; with a caveat. posted on 03/16/2012 5 Stars My original order had obvious surface marks and scratches, of the sort you'd be surprised would be make it past any QC dept. for a specialty product. Never played it. I exchanged it for another copy, which is excellent. Thanks again, Jay, for your courteous help with that. The sound easily fixes the problems with the original LP, all previous LP reissues, all CDs and hires download iterations. Accept no other.

Awesome posted on 02/14/2012 5 Stars Sounds great

Oh brother posted on 09/07/2011 4 Stars Reviewer: Mr. Nick I love this album and wanted to hear it at it's best. So, I decided to spend the extra cash for the 45s. While it really comes alive and I can hear things that I was never able to before, I was a little disappointed with the way it played. Maybe I received a bad copy, but it was a little crackly.

Magical posted on 03/27/2010 5 Stars Gorgeous sonics on this pressing. Well worth it if, like me, you enjoy this recording year-round. Recommended!

A holiday tradition posted on 12/30/2009 5 Stars The music is beautiful and timeless: 10/10. The sound quality is beyond perfect: 10/10. The pressing quality is par for the course for RTI: 7/10. Excellent!

So good it makes you cry... posted on 09/11/2008 5 Stars Reviewer: shazam I've had a version of this album in my collection in one form or another (LP, CD, SACD) for 25 years and this 45rpm is by far the best. Listening to this the other night with a friend had us reminiscing about our childhood and how much we looked forward to this special on TV every year. Hearing the stunning quality of this record put me back at that age where the world was full of wonder and everything was new and exciting. To all those involved in the pressing of this, I can't thank you enough. I will treasure this copy for another 25 years.

tip top posted on 04/30/2007 5 Stars Reviewer: alanb very nice - a classic that just got better

Awesome posted on 01/02/2007 5 Stars Any jazz fan who spins vinyl who doesn't own this just doesn't get it. This is not just a holiday album. This is an alltime classic, up there with "Time Out", "Kind of Blue" and "Love Supreme". Really. And this new 45 edition blows away any version you've heard and loved in the past. The dream team of Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray have once again done their magic and brought out every little nuance available to them. I warn you...if you don't pick this up now, it will go out of print on you and you will find yourself trying to buy it on Ebay a few years from now at triple the price. Get this now!

Awesome! posted on 12/16/2006 5 Stars Reviewer: andyinstal Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray have done a great job again! This vinyl kills my SACD of this title. The piano sounds so real and everything has that 'in the studio' presence about it. My new favorite to show off my system.

A perfect marriage of content and sonics posted on 12/14/2006 5 Stars Reviewer: Peter D'Amario This album is a marvelous combination: Some of the most memorable Christmas music matched with astonishingly good sound. This is probably about as good as vinyl can get; it blows away the CD I own from a sonic point of view. The only negative is that I'm jumping up every 10 minutes to flip the LPs...however in this case it is eminently worth it. Not a cheap purchase, but if you're going to drop fifty bucks on an album, this is one for the ages.

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