Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas [FANTASY]

Why you'll love it

It's one of the best-selling Christmas albums of all time and a cornerstone of West Coast jazz, home to "Linus and Lucy" and "Christmas Time Is Here." Every December it flies out of our shops faster than anything else in the jazz bins.

This edition

• Single LP, 12 tracks
• Fantasy pressing of the original 1965 album
• Includes "Linus and Lucy", "Christmas Time Is Here" and "Skating"

About the album

It started as a soundtrack to a Peanuts documentary that never aired. When Coca-Cola commissioned a Charlie Brown Christmas special in 1965, producer Lee Mendelson called pianist Vince Guaraldi back in, and the San Francisco jazzman turned in a score so effortlessly cool that it has outlived just about every other holiday record of its era. Guaraldi wrote most of it himself, slipping in gentle trio takes on "O Tannenbaum" and "What Child Is This" alongside originals like the bouncy "Linus and Lucy" and the wistful "Christmas Time Is Here."

There's a lovely bit of lore behind the vocals, too: a children's choir from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in San Rafael sang late into the night at Fantasy's studio and got ice cream for their trouble, which might explain why they sound a little off-key and entirely charming. Sixty years on, it's the record that tells a whole lot of households the season has officially started.

Also at Kops: more Vince Guaraldi on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Fantasy (cat# 8431), a reissue of the 1965 album.