APPROVED: Dave Meder, Major Professor Andrew May, Committee Member William Coppola, Committee Member Rob Parton, Chair of the Division of Jazz

Studies Jaymee Haefner, Director of Graduate Studies

in the College of Music John W. Richmond, Dean of the College of

Music Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse

Graduate School

THE GUARALDI SOUND: THE MUSICAL DEVICES THAT CHARACTERIZE VINCE GUARALDI’S

IMPROVISATIONAL AND COMPOSITIONAL IDIOM

Alec Villars Huntley

Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS

December 2020

Huntley, Alec Villars. The Guaraldi Sound: The Musical Devices that Characterize Vince

Guaraldi’s Improvisational and Compositional Idiom. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance),

December 2020, 139 pp., 101 musical examples, 3 appendices, bibliography, 52 titles,

discography, 49 titles.

Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976) was a jazz pianist who achieved tremendous financial and

commercial success in the 1960s with his popular recordings and his work for the Peanuts

animated shorts. He cultivated a musical style that drew from several identifiable sources:

boogie-woogie, bebop, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll. The result was a distinct

approach to jazz which, although it may not have been as influential as that of some of his

contemporaries, nevertheless constituted a unique and personal voice—what several

commentators have referred to as the “Guaraldi sound.” This dissertation considers the entire

range of Guaraldi’s recorded output in order to define and catalog many elements that

contributed to Guaraldi’s musical style. Using an analytical framework drawn from the work of

Leonard Meyer and Benjamin Givan, this study describes both Guaraldi’s improvisational

style—the licks, patterns, and phrases that he plays while soloing—and common elements of

his compositions—the chord progressions, grooves, and other features that are particularly

idiomatic. Also discussed are Guaraldi’s status within the established jazz canon and the

disparity between his widespread popularity and his lukewarm critical reputation. The

discussion and analyses provide useful insights for fans of Guaraldi, fans of Peanuts music, jazz

musicologists, and any seeking to emulate the Guaraldi sound.

ii

Copyright 2020

by

Alec Villars Huntley

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It would not have been possible for me to write this document without the help of so

many of my teachers, colleagues, family, and friends. Here are but a few:

Dr. John Murphy, you are an inspiration. You modeled for me what it means to be an

academic in our field, and you did so in a way that demonstrated compassion, professionalism,

ethics, and rigor. Thank you for guiding me through this degree.

Professor Dave Meder, thank you for your honest feedback and willingness to share

your expertise; I hope we stay in touch even when you are world-famous. Dr. Andrew May, I am

inspired by your brilliance and immensely grateful for your tutelage. Dr. William Coppola, thank

you for bravely agreeing to be on my committee even though we had never previously met.

Derrick Bang, without your scholarship and your quick replies to my incessant inquiries,

this project would have been nearly impossible. George Winston, entire sections of this paper

exist only due to your insights. Thank you both for exceeding my hopes in every way.

Thank you to the many jazz piano teachers I have studied with: Jerry Frohmader, Eric

Pan, Murray Low, Mark Levine, Alan Pasqua, Dahveed Behroozi, Pat Coil, and Dave Meder. Each

of you taught me ideas and techniques that I employ every time I touch the instrument.

Dr. Gregory Satterthwaite, you and I are the UNT Jazz DMA class of 2020. You have been

an essential part of this journey for me, and I am so thankful for your friendship.

My parents, Patrice Villars and Stuart Ratner, thank you for affording me the privilege of

being able to study music. I am forever grateful. Tallulah Belle, thank you for your company in

my office. And Katherine Murphy Pool, my wife, partner, and most trusted editor, there is too

much to thank you for on this page. I love you.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ........................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2. METHOD ...................................................................................................................... 7

2.1 Recordings Referenced ........................................................................................... 7

2.2 Distinguishing Peanuts Recordings ......................................................................... 8

2.3 Transcriptions and Examples ................................................................................ 11

2.4 Dialect, Idiom, and Intraopus Style ....................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 3. GUARALDI’S INFLUENCES .......................................................................................... 13

3.1 Boogie-Woogie...................................................................................................... 13

3.2 Jazz ........................................................................................................................ 14

3.3 Afro-Cuban Music ................................................................................................. 17

3.4 Bossa Nova ............................................................................................................ 18

3.5 Eclecticism and Peanuts ........................................................................................ 20

3.6 Rock and Pop......................................................................................................... 22

3.7 Posthumous Reputation ....................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 4. ELEMENTS OF GUARALDI’S IMPROVISATIONAL STYLE ............................................. 29

4.1 Bebop Roots .......................................................................................................... 29

4.2 The 3-♭9 Lick ......................................................................................................... 31

4.3 Dyads and Double Stops ....................................................................................... 36

4.4 Minor-3rd Double Stops ....................................................................................... 40

4.5 Peak 4th Phrases ................................................................................................... 47

4.6 Horn 5ths .............................................................................................................. 51

4.7 The “Gone But Not Forgotten” Lick ...................................................................... 55

4.8 Descending Enclosures ......................................................................................... 58

4.9 Red Garland Block Chords ..................................................................................... 63

v

4.10 Left-Hand Voicings ................................................................................................ 67 CHAPTER 5. ELEMENTS OF GUARALDI’S COMPOSITIONS ............................................................ 74

5.1 Left-Hand Bass ...................................................................................................... 74

5.2 Montunos and the I-IV-V-IV Progression .............................................................. 78

5.3 Triads ..................................................................................................................... 83

5.4 Tritone Walkdowns ............................................................................................... 86

5.5 “Latin” and Blended Grooves ............................................................................... 90

5.6 Two Alternating Chords ........................................................................................ 93

5.7 Two-Chord Jams and the Influence of Rock ‘n’ Roll ............................................. 95 CHAPTER 6. THE JAZZ CANON AND GUARALDI’S LEGACY ............................................................ 99

6.1 Critical Reputation ................................................................................................ 99

6.2 Musical Legacy .................................................................................................... 103 APPENDIX A. TRANSCRIPTION OF “NEWPORT THEME” ............................................................. 108 APPENDIX B. TRANSCRIPTION OF “THE MASKED MARVEL” ....................................................... 115 APPENDIX C. TRANSCRIPTION OF “WOODSTOCK’S PAD” .......................................................... 124 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................ 133 DISCOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 137

vi

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Page

Example 4.1.1: “Fascinating Rhythm,” four measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ................................... 30

Example 4.1.2: “I’ll Remember April,” second four measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ....................... 31

Example 4.2.1: “Calling Dr. Funk,” four examples of the 3-♭9 lick. .............................................. 32

Example 4.2.2: “O Tannenbaum,” four examples of the 3-♭9 lick. .............................................. 33

Example 4.2.3: “Moon River,” two examples of the 3-♭9 lick. ..................................................... 34

Example 4.2.4: “Autumn Leaves,” four examples of the 3-♭9 lick................................................ 34

Example 4.2.5: “Samba de Orpheus,” two sequential arpeggiated 3-♭9 licks. ............................ 35

Example 4.2.6: “Jitterbug Waltz,” three examples of the 3-♭9 lick. ............................................. 36

Example 4.3.1: “Treat Street,” first three measures of the head. ................................................ 37

Example 4.3.2: “Cast Your Fate to Wind,” first four measures of the head. ................................ 37

Example 4.3.3: “The Masked Marvel,” eight measures of the B section. .................................... 38

Example 4.3.4: “Fenwyck’s Farfel,” three measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ...................................... 39

Example 4.3.5: “Detained in San Ysidro,” first four measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ....................... 40

Example 4.4.1: “Linus and Lucy,” B section minor-3rd double stops. .......................................... 41

Example 4.4.2: Two ways of notating Guaraldi’s minor-3rd double stop. ................................... 41

Example 4.4.3: “Willow Weep for Me” with Cal Tjader, first four measures of A section. .......... 42

Example 4.4.4: “Willow Weep for Me,” four measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ................................. 42

Example 4.4.5: “Summertime” with Cal Tjader, first three measures of second chorus of Guaraldi’s solo. .............................................................................................................................. 43

Example 4.4.6: “Samba de Orpheus,” minor-3rd double stops on the head. .............................. 44

Example 4.4.7: “Samba de Orpheus,” minor-3rd double stops on Guaraldi’s solo. .................... 44

Example 4.4.8: “Samba de Orpheus,” minor-3rd double stops several times in a row. .............. 44

vii

Example 4.4.9: “Samba de Orpheus,” single minor-3rd double stop. .......................................... 44

Example 4.4.10: “Charlie Brown Theme,” minor-3rd double stops on the head. ........................ 45

Example 4.4.11: “Charlie Brown Theme,” minor-3rd double stops on Guaraldi’s solo. .............. 45

Example 4.4.12: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” first four measures of Guaraldi’s solo. .............. 46

Example 4.4.13: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” last phrase of Guaraldi’s solo. ........................... 46

Example 4.5.1: “Charlie Brown Theme,” peak 4th phrase during Guaraldi’s solo. ...................... 48

Example 4.5.2: “Ginza Samba,” peak 4th phrase during Guaraldi’s solo. .................................... 48

Example 4.5.3: “Newport Theme,” four peak 4th phrases during Guaraldi’s solo. ..................... 49

Example 4.5.4: “Newport Theme,” peak 4th phrase anticipating D♭Maj7. ................................. 49

Example 4.5.5: “Newport Theme” peak 4th phrase implying preceding A♭Maj7. ....................... 50

Example 4.5.6: “Jitterbug Waltz,” first measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ........................................... 50

Example 4.5.7: “Mr. Lucky,” peak 4th phrase implying C major. ................................................. 51

Example 4.5.8: “Linus and Lucy,” peak 4th phrase using horn 5ths. ............................................ 51

Example 4.6.1: “Linus and Lucy,” A section melody. .................................................................... 52

Example 4.6.2: “Linus and Lucy,” three-octave horn 5ths run. .................................................... 52

Example 4.6.3: “Greensleeves,” horn 5ths during Guaraldi’s solo. .............................................. 53

Example 4.6.4: “Autumn Leaves,” horn 5ths during Guaraldi’s solo. ........................................... 53

Example 4.6.5: “Greensleeves,” horn 5ths with peak 4th during outro. ..................................... 54

Example 4.6.6: “Newport Theme,” modified horn 5ths with peak 4th. ....................................... 55

Example 4.6.7: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” two horn 5ths phrases, one with a peak 4th. ..... 55

Example 4.7.1: Prototype “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick. ........................................................... 56

Example 4.7.2: “Moon River,” “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick during Guaraldi’s solo. ............... 56

Example 4.7.3: “Outra Vez,” major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick. ................. 57

Example 4.7.4: “Skating,” major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick, several times........................................................................................................................................................ 57

viii

Example 4.7.5: “Samba de Orpheus,” major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick. ... 58

Example 4.7.6: “Greensleeves,” three instances of major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick. ............................................................................................................................. 58

Example 4.8.1: “Charlie Brown Theme,” descending enclosures. ................................................ 59

Example 4.8.2: “Greensleeves,” descending enclosures. ............................................................. 60

Example 4.8.3: “Autumn Leaves,” descending enclosures. .......................................................... 60

Example 4.8.4: “Theme to Grace,” descending enclosures. ......................................................... 61

Example 4.8.5: “El Matador,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major. ...................... 61

Example 4.8.6: “Jitterbug Waltz,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major................. 62

Example 4.8.7: “Jitterbug Waltz,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major................. 62

Example 4.8.8: “Girl from Ipanema,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major. .......... 62

Example 4.9.1: “Blues for Peanuts,” Red Garland voicings. ......................................................... 64

Example 4.9.2: “Manhã de Carnaval,” Red Garland voicings. ...................................................... 65

Example 4.9.3: “Samba de Orpheus,” Red Garland voicings. ....................................................... 66

Example 4.9.4: “Three Little Words,” Red Garland voicings. ....................................................... 67

Example 4.10.1: “Fenwyck’s Farfel,” eight measures of Guaraldi’s solo with sparse left hand. .. 68

Example 4.10.2: “Newport Theme,” sparse left hand, roots only. ............................................... 69

Example 4.10.3: “Ginza Samba,” Bud Powell voicings. ................................................................ 70

Example 4.10.4: “Samba de Orpheus,” three- and four-note left-hand voicings. ....................... 71

Example 4.10.5: “Woodstock’s Pad,” four-note left-hand voicings. ............................................ 71

Example 4.10.6: Two common voicings for iiø7-V7♭13. ............................................................... 72

Example 4.10.7: “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” two common left-hand voicings. ......................... 73

Example 4.10.8: “Rain, Rain Go Away,” two common left-hand voicings. ................................... 73

Example 4.10.9: “Theme to Grace,” two common left-hand voicings. ........................................ 73

Example 5.1.1: “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” mm. 2-5. .................................................................... 74

ix

Example 5.1.2: “Play It Again, Charlie Brown,” boogie-woogie left-hand bass pattern. ............. 75

Example 5.1.3: “Linus and Lucy,” bass line during A sections. ..................................................... 75

Example 5.1.4: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” opening bass line. ................................................ 76

Example 5.1.5: “Alma-Ville,” first seven measures of A section. ................................................. 77

Example 5.1.6: “Skating,” eight measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ...................................................... 77

Example 5.2.1: “Guarachi Guaro,” montuno. ............................................................................... 78

Example 5.2.2: “El Matador,” left-hand montuno pattern........................................................... 79

Example 5.2.3: “Alma-Ville,” intro featuring montuno and cha-cha-chá rhythm. ....................... 79

Example 5.2.4: “Treat Street,” introductory cha-cha-chá vamp. ................................................. 80

Example 5.2.5: “Treat Street,” first measures of Guaraldi’s solo. ................................................ 80

Example 5.2.6: “Detained in San Ysidro,” first measures of A section. ........................................ 81

Example 5.2.7: “Christmas Is Coming,” first measures of Guaraldi’s solo. .................................. 81

Example 5.2.8: “Skating,” intro vamp into first measures of A section. ...................................... 82

Example 5.2.9: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” I-IV-V-IV progression leading into solos. ............. 83

Example 5.2.10: “Peppermint Patty,” first measures of A section. .............................................. 83

Example 5.3.1: “Monterey,” first eight measures of B section. Ossia staff shows the melody sung by the Boys Chorus. .............................................................................................................. 84

Example 5.3.2: “Thanksgiving Theme,” first eight measures. ...................................................... 85

Example 5.3.3: “Rain, Rain Go Away,” first four measures. ......................................................... 85

Example 5.3.4: “Red Baron,” first several measures of head. ...................................................... 86

Example 5.4.1: “Christmas Time Is Here,” tritone walkdown on second half of A section. ......... 87

Example 5.4.2: “Peppermint Patty,” tritone walkdown on second half of A section. ................. 88

Example 5.4.3: “Christmas Is Coming,” tritone walkdown on second half of A section. ............. 88

Example 5.4.4: “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown,” three-voice reduction of first half of B section. Notes in parentheses are implied by the harmony but not played. ............................................ 89

x

Example 5.4.5: “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” first A section. ........................................................ 89

Example 5.4.6: “Monterey,” first A section. Ossia staff shows the melody sung by the Boys Chorus. .......................................................................................................................................... 90

Example 5.6.1: “Christmas Time Is Here,” first four measures of A section. ............................... 94

Example 5.6.2: “Christmas Is Coming,” first four measures of A section. .................................... 94

Example 5.6.3: “Woodstock’s Pad,” first eight measures of A section. ....................................... 95

Example 5.6.4: “Like a Mighty Rose,” first four measures of A section. ...................................... 95

Example 5.7.1: “Lucifer’s Lady,” introductory two-measure piano vamp. ................................... 96

Example 5.7.2: “You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown,” first four measures. ............................... 97

Example 5.7.3: “Motocross,” first four measures. ....................................................................... 97

1

INTRODUCTION

Vince Guaraldi (1928–1976) was a jazz pianist who achieved tremendous financial and

commercial success in the 1960s with his popular recordings and his work for the Peanuts

animated shorts. He cultivated a musical style that drew from several identifiable sources:

boogie-woogie, bebop, Brazilian and Afro-Cuban jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll. The result was a distinct

and characteristic approach to jazz which, although it may not have been as influential as that

of some of his contemporaries, nevertheless constituted a unique and personal voice—what

several commentators have referred to as the “Guaraldi sound.” In this study, I define and

catalog many of the elements that contributed to this style. I consider the entire range of

Guaraldi’s recorded output. I analyze both his improvisational style—the licks, patterns, and

phrases that he plays while soloing—and common elements of his compositions—the chord

progressions, grooves, and other features that strike me as particularly Guaraldian. In so doing,

I hope to provide useful insights for fans of Guaraldi, fans of Peanuts music, jazz musicologists,

and any seeking to emulate the Guaraldi sound.

Guaraldi plays only a minor role in mainstream jazz history. His name is absent from

nearly every jazz textbook, appearing only in those that specifically cover Californian jazz or the

musicians with whom Guaraldi played.1 Even Ted Gioia’s seminal West Coast Jazz2 devotes only

three paragraphs to Guaraldi. This might seem odd considering what Guaraldi accomplished

1 He is mentioned, for example, in S. Duncan Reid, Cal Tjader: The Life and Recordings of the Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz, (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2013). 2 Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 105-106.

2

during his lifetime. His 1962 album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus3 reached number twenty-

four on the Billboard “150 Top LP’s” list for monaural records.4 The album’s hit single “Cast

Your Fate to the Wind” sold more than three hundred thousand copies within the first few

years of its release,5 reached number twenty-two on the Billboard “Hot 100” chart,6 and won a

Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition. Guaraldi was admired by the likes of Dizzy

Gillespie (1917–1993)7 and Miles Davis (1926–1991); Davis even entreated Guaraldi to join his

band—an offer that Guaraldi politely declined.8 He was a central figure in the California Bay

Area’s jazz and “Latin”9 jazz scenes. And as Barry Gordon reports in a 2009 article in The

Scotsman,10 Guaraldi was “one of the first [jazz musicians] to win a Grammy; one of the first

musicians to play a stadium, and one of, if not the, first artists to have their music played in

space.”11

3 Vince Guaraldi, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded November 1961 and February 1962, Fantasy 3337, 1962. 4 Billboard, “Top LP’s for Week Ending May 18,” May 18, 1963, 34, accessed via Google Books on October 22, 2020, https://books.google.com/books?id=ZwsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false. 5 Richard Moore, dir., Anatomy of a Hit, “Program I: The Serendipity Groove,”, National Educational Television and Radio Center, 1964, 56:50. 6 “Chart History: Vince Guaraldi Trio,” Billboard, accessed October 7, 2020, https://www.billboard.com/music/vince-guaraldi-trio/chart-history/HSI. 7 Larry Vuckovich, “Larry Vuckovich: The Many Sides of Vince Guaraldi,” SFJAZZ, June 15, 2016, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvHYDa3LSw. 8 Derrick Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2012), 118. 9 Here and throughout the paper, the word “Latin” appears in quotation marks since the term fails to distinguish between several distinct musical traditions. Where appropriate, I use the more descriptive terms like “Afro-Cuban” or “Brazilian.” However, since Guaraldi himself, and many who wrote about his music, used the generic term “Latin,” I occasionally do also. 10 Barry Gordon, “He Wrote the Soundtrack to the Life of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang, and Yet His Name Will Probably Escape You,” The Scotsman, February 6, 2009, reposted by Derrick Bang on “News Clippings and Press Releases,” Five Cents Please, accessed September 9, 2020, http://www.fivecentsplease.org/dpb/clips29.html. 11 Gordon also reports that Guaraldi was “the first jazz musician to have a gold record.” As it turns out, this

3

Perhaps most underappreciated, however, is the fact that Guaraldi recorded the

second-best-selling jazz album of all time.12 The Recording Industry Association of America

(RIAA) certifies A Charlie Brown Christmas13 as quadruple platinum, having sold more than four

million copies to date,14 and it remains profoundly popular. It reached the top position on the

Billboard Catalogue Albums list in 2008,15 peaked at number two on the Traditional Jazz Albums

list as recently as January 17, 2020,16 and seems to climb back into the top thirty of one or more

Billboard charts every holiday season. As Barry Gordon insists, “Guaraldi introduced millions

more children like me to jazz than Miles Davis’s A Kind of Blue ever did for our parents.”17

And yet, Guaraldi is not always celebrated by contemporary jazz musicians and critics.

For example, in a November 30, 2017, article in The New Yorker, pianist Ethan Iverson reflected

on the enduring popularity of A Charlie Brown Christmas and seemed to lament Guaraldi’s

legacy. He wrote, “though [Guaraldi’s] bebop lines were enjoyable, he lacked the fire of

statement is not fully accurate. RIAA reports neither Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus nor “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” as certified gold. Gordon may have been referring to an in-house gold record presented to Guaraldi by Fantasy Records, as shown in a scene in Anatomy of a Hit. For additional information, see Derrick Bang, “Fools’ Gold?,” Impressions of Vince (blog), October 24, 2020, http://impressionsofvince.blogspot.com/2020/10/fools-gold.html. 12 The title of best-selling jazz record is commonly given to Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, but sales numbers are somewhat uncertain. Nielsen Soundscan, the authoritative source on album sales, reports at least four million sales of A Charlie Brown Christmas. But their records only date back to 1991. Prior to that year, we can only rely on reports released by recording labels, and Fantasy (Guaraldi’s label) was notoriously bad at keeping accurate sales records. In fact, when I spoke with Derrick Bang, he suggested that Fantasy may have been motivated to underreport sales to deprive Guaraldi of his share of the profit. It is therefore plausible, Bang suggested, that A Charlie Brown Christmas is the best-selling jazz album of all time. 13 Vince Guaraldi Trio, A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded March and September 1965, Fantasy 8431, 1965. 14 Recording Industry Association of America, “Gold & Platinum,” accessed September 26, 2020, https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&se=charlie+brown+christmas#search_section. 15 “Chart History: Vince Guaraldi Trio,” Billboard, accessed October 7, 2020, https://www.billboard.com/music/vince-guaraldi-trio/chart-history/TLC. 16 “Chart History: Vince Guaraldi Trio,” Billboard, accessed October 7, 2020, https://www.billboard.com/music/vince-guaraldi-trio/chart-history/JLP. 17 Gordon, “He Wrote the Soundtrack to the Life of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang.”

4

Hampton Hawes or the mystery of Jimmy Rowles.”18 The following week, Iverson posted an

entry on his blog in which he expressed embarrassment for having brought any attention to

Guaraldi. He wrote, “Truthfully, I’m actually a little abashed about celebrating Guaraldi, for in

no way is he a jazzer’s jazzer. If you are talking West Coast piano of a certain era, many serious

fans love Hampton Hawes and Jimmy Rowles more than Vince Guaraldi.”19 An online review of

Derrick Bang’s assiduously comprehensive career study Vince Guaraldi at the Piano seemed to

capture the jazz community’s tepid feelings about Guaraldi, describing the book as “an

exhaustive history of the professional career of a solid, if minor, west coast jazz pianist who will

be remembered primarily for his Peanuts scores. One appreciates the author’s thoroughness

but is Guaraldi worth the effort?”20

Maybe not, if he is to be judged only by some metrics. He did not share the virtuosity of

his contemporaries Bill Evans (1929–1980) and Oscar Peterson (1925–2007). His vocabulary was

somewhat limited, a fact that aids this study but constrained the variety of his improvisation.

His compositions were in many ways conventional, rarely challenging listener expectations. And

the peculiarities of the Guaraldi sound were not adopted by many future mainstream jazz

musicians, so he is not widely remembered as an innovator. (Actually, Iverson gives Guaraldi

more credit than most on this point, writing, “The simple but effective techniques that Guaraldi

pioneered, especially in ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind,’ were important to all the jazz that sported

18 Ethan Iverson, “Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi,” The New Yorker, November 30, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/deck-the-halls-with-vince-guaraldi. 19 Ethan Iverson, “West Coast Piano,” Do the M@th (blog), December 3, 2017, https://ethaniverson.com/2017/12/03/west-coast-piano. 20 dleona, review of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano by Derrick Bang, LibraryThing, accessed September 26, 2020, http://www.librarything.com/work/12549139/reviews/87090184.

5

a folksy diatonic twang a few years later—by Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, and so

forth.”21)

But these metrics were not Guaraldi’s goals; his aspirations were arguably nobler than

merely being a great jazz pianist. In fact, Guaraldi did not compare himself favorably to his

peers in many respects. As he once told West Coast jazz critic Ralph Gleason (1917–1975), “I

don’t think I’m a great piano player, but I would like to be able to have people like me, to play

pretty tunes and to reach the audience.”22

Guaraldi achieved his stated goals during his lifetime: people liked him, and his music

reached them. Indeed, Guaraldi continues to reach audiences posthumously. My first exposure

to jazz, like that of millions of others, was A Charlie Brown Christmas. I must have heard it at an

age before I could form long-term memories, since I don’t remember hearing it for the first

time, and I suspect it had a strong impact on my future love of jazz, since I have pursued the

genre with passion as an adult. My trajectory into this music was hardly unique. Indeed, as

Ethan Iverson points out, “A Charlie Brown Christmas remains the ultimate gateway drug.

Countless listeners have responded to Guaraldi’s optimistic swinging piano by searching for

another hit of that tasty rhythmic realm.”23

Guaraldi did more than simply make accessible music. He cultivated a unique musical

voice—an achievement that jazz musicians generally consider desirable but which few can

claim to have accomplished. His style, although perhaps simple when compared to that of other

jazz trendsetters of the 1960s, was fun and unpretentious. It drew freely from his many

21 Iverson, “Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi.” 22 Ralph Gleason, “Vince Knew What It Meant to Play like Count Basie,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 30, 1958, quoted in Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 318. 23 Iverson, “Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi.”

6

influences and from the popular trends of his time: boogie-woogie, swing, “Latin” jazz, and

even the psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll of the Summer of Love. It is a style that, as Bang writes, “could

be described in various ways, but fans usually agreed that it was cheerful; one simply couldn’t

listen to the pianist without smiling.”24 In the pages that follow, I identify several elements of

Guaraldi’s improvisational and compositional idiom in order to document and define the

unique Guaraldi sound.

24 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 159.

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METHOD

2.1 Recordings Referenced

My study of Guaraldi’s musical characteristics is intended to be thorough, spanning his

entire recording career. Therefore, one of my first tasks for this project was compiling a

discography of Guaraldi’s recorded output. My primary reference—and to my knowledge the

most comprehensive such accounting—was the website written and maintained by Derrick

Bang, titled Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD.25 Referencing Bang’s work, I compiled a spreadsheet

of every known recording Guaraldi made or participated in. Then I began searching for a digital

copy of each.

My sources for the recordings varied, but by far the most common were music

streaming services. As I write this, most of Guaraldi’s recordings are available on Spotify. I

compiled a Spotify playlist that comprises 347 recordings,26 although this number includes

some duplicates that were released more than once. I supplemented the Spotify playlist with

some albums that I purchased and others that were generously sent to me by Derrick Bang and

pianist George Winston. I also located several of the few videos that feature complete musical

performances by Guaraldi: a three-part, 1964 documentary written and produced by Ralph

Gleason and Richard Moore titled Anatomy of a Hit,27 two episodes of the 1960s television

25 Derrick Bang, “Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD”, Five Cents Please, accessed September 26, 2020, http://www.fivecentsplease.org/dpb/vincecd.html. 26 The playlist can be accessed at: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6aa0xhsNJt7h64JFadeRsA?si=Kvn8weP6Q9KRsGVsXFVCwg. 27 Moore, Anatomy of a Hit.

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series Jazz Casual hosted by Gleason,28 and an unreleased 2009 documentary titled The

Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi.29

My discography lists more than 500 recordings. It spans Guaraldi’s entire recording

career, from his very first recordings with Cal Tjader (1925–1982) in 1951 to his final,

posthumously released album with his own trio from 1974.30 It includes both studio albums and

live recordings, and it includes every published recording for which Guaraldi was the

bandleader—unless that recording can only be heard in the context of a Peanuts special.

2.2 Distinguishing Peanuts Recordings

I excluded from my study recordings that were made for Peanuts but were never

released separately. In other words, if a recording can only be heard in the background of a

Peanuts special, I did not study it. However, several Peanuts recordings were published on

records, on CDs, and (decades later) on streaming platforms. I did study these recordings.

Indeed, for Guaraldi’s published music, I make no distinction between recordings and

compositions that were made expressly for Peanuts and those that were not. This is for two

reasons.

28 Jazz Casual, produced by Richard Moore and KQED of San Francisco CA; “Jimmy Witherspoon,” originally aired on January 4, 1962, YouTube video posted by Pavel Voronin August 21, 2017, https://youtu.be/j6R-mKBYOeg; “Bola Sete/Vince Guaraldi Trio,” originally aired September 25, 1963, YouTube video posted by Eduardo Hargreaves April 18, 2017, https://youtu.be/g162zNoMVLs. 29 Andrew Thomas and Toby Gleason, The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, Jazz Casual Productions, 2009, not yet available for purchase, cited with permission from Andrew Thomas. 30 Live on the Air was recorded February 4, 1974, and released in 2008. However, as noted previously, Guaraldi continued to record for Peanuts specials and at least one unreleased album. Several undated recordings were also published on North Beach, and some of these may be from after 1974. Guaraldi’s final recordings were made just hours before his death on February 6, 1976, for It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown. No official soundtrack for this show was ever released.

9

First, Guaraldi’s recording history implies that he did not care much to distinguish them

either. Several Peanuts compositions are included on albums not marketed as Peanuts-themed

and which also contain jazz standards and Peanuts-unaffiliated originals. For example, “The

Masked Marvel”—first composed for the 1969 television special It Was a Short Summer, Charlie

Brown31—was recorded again later the same year and included on the Peanuts-unaffiliated

album Alma-Ville.32 Similarly, the Peanuts anthem “Linus and Lucy” is included on An Afternoon

with the Vince Guaraldi Quartet,33 a collection of recordings of live performances from October

1967.

Second, little distinguishes Guaraldi’s Peanuts compositions from his others. Each of the

improvisational and compositional elements I identify occurs with similar frequency among

both sets of music. Indeed, Guaraldi’s compositions for Peanuts specials had more in common

with standard jazz material than with the through-composed, precisely timed, leitmotific scores

that characterize the work of, for example, John Williams. Peanuts compositions, like most of

Guaraldi’s other material, often followed standard jazz “head” form: improvisation over a

repeating chord progression sandwiched between interpretations of a composed melody.

The musicians who worked with Guaraldi on Peanuts scoring sessions remember them

as casual affairs. Comparing Peanuts scoring sessions to others he was involved with, drummer

Eliot Zigmund recalled:

On a lot of recording dates, especially for movies, they have very, very specific arrangements that you read note for note, bar to bar. Doing the Peanuts music was different than that. I don’t recall that we had written music, in the sense of an

31 It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown, directed by Bill Melendez, produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, originally aired on CBS on September 27, 1969. 32 Vince Guaraldi, Alma-Ville, recorded October 1969, Warner Bros. WS 1828, 1969. 33 Vince Guaraldi, An Afternoon with the Vince Guaraldi Quartet, recorded October 17-29, 1967, VAG Publishing VAG1121, 2011.

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arrangement that would be, for example, 23 seconds long; most of it was just improvised on the spot. Vince might have had a structure or a lead sheet that he’d hand to me and the bass player. And he’d say, “We’re gonna do this until I make an ending, so just watch me.” And he would just play and fade, or fake an ending after 23 seconds.34

Some care was even taken to allow tracks recorded during these sessions to be published

outside the context of the Peanuts franchise. As bassist Fred Marshall (1938–2001)

remembered:

We’d go into the studio with certain themes, and some had to be a specific length. Like “Linus and Lucy” clearly had radio potential so we kept it to three minutes, about the maximum you could put onto a single and get a station to play. Other things, like “Blue Charlie Brown,” was just an open-ended blues. Vince never wrote out our parts. He’d do a little sketch, and because we’d played together long enough to where we knew what each other would do, we’d just do it.35

Drummer Jerry Granelli, who worked with Guaraldi on many of the Peanuts

soundtracks, offered a similar perspective about the relationship between Guaraldi’s Peanuts

work and personal tastes. “We weren’t asked to suddenly go water down your music to fit this

cartoon,” he remembers. “It was [author] Charles Schulz and Vince coming together—and

[producer] Lee Mendelson—these guys coming together to make a project artistically they

were all proud of.”36

Because the compositions and the circumstances of their recording were so similar, for

the purposes of studying his improvisational and compositional style, I did not distinguish

between the compositions Guaraldi wrote and recorded for Peanuts and those which he did

not. The most complete understanding of the Guaraldi sound comes from studying both.

34 Eliot Zigmund, quoted in Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 282. 35 Fred Marshall, quoted by Larry Kelp, liner notes to Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits, Fantasy Records FCD-9682-2, 1998. 36 Thomas and Gleason, Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, disc 2, 4:20.

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2.3 Transcriptions and Examples

For the sake of accuracy, and to verify what I thought I was hearing, it was important

that I be able to reference written transcriptions of the examples I discuss. For this reason, the

examples in this paper mostly–although not exclusively–come from recordings for which I

already had a transcription available to study. My project was therefore helped immensely by

two extant collections of transcriptions published by Hal Leonard: The Vince Guaraldi

Collection37 and The Definitive Vince Guaraldi.38 Only three transcriptions from the former book

are not present in the latter, but together the collections include transcriptions of thirty-four

unique recordings. They include both arrangements of standards and original compositions,

including many written for the Peanuts animated shorts. I supplemented these collections with

three transcriptions of my own, which are attached as Appendices A, B, and C. I transcribed

additional short excerpts of other recordings as needed for examples.

There is an unavoidable degree of subjectivity involved in the way I identified what

Guaraldisms to discuss in this paper: they are those that I heard so many times while listening

through Guaraldi’s recordings that I began to associate them with his personal style. My study

began with attentive listening to every recording of Guaraldi that I could find. As I worked on

the transcriptions for this project and grew increasingly familiar with Guaraldi’s recorded

output, I began to note musical phrases and patterns that I heard repeatedly. Then I

meticulously studied the transcriptions I had access to and cataloged each occurrence of the

devices I had noted. The many examples provided in this paper are drawn from this catalog.

37 The Vince Guaraldi Collection (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2019). 38 The Definitive Vince Guaraldi (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2001).

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2.4 Dialect, Idiom, and Intraopus Style

In a 2014 essay, jazz scholar Benjamin Givan employs a framework established by

Leonard Meyer to study the musical vocabulary of Sonny Rollins and Rollins’s contemporaries.

Meyer’s framework establishes three levels of vocabulary analysis: dialect, idiom, and intraopus

style. Givan summarizes each, writing:

A “dialect” is a set of musical attributes associated with a number of composers (or improvisers); musicians with a shared dialect have individual approaches, which Meyer calls “idioms”; and finally, any given piece of music has its own “intraopus” style consisting of features that are “replicated within a single work,” or, by extension, within a jazz improvisation.39

Because I am interested in Guaraldi’s individual musical characteristics—not those of jazz

musicians generally or those associated only with specific compositions—in this study I mostly

attempt to identify Guaraldi’s personal idioms in the context of both his improvised solos and

his original compositions.40 However, jazz musicians by definition use musical devices and

vocabulary that are part of a common jazz dialect. Guaraldi was no exception. Indeed, he

played some dialectal devices with enough frequency that they help characterize his personal

idiom as well. Therefore, in this study, I identify, discuss, and provide examples of several

dialectal devices that Guaraldi used often. And in one case, when discussing horn 5ths, I show

how a device that began as an element of a single composition’s intraopus style was

subsequently adopted into Guaraldi’s personal idiom.

39 Benjamin Givan, “Gunther Schuller and the Challenge of Sonny Rollins: Stylistic Context, Intentionality, and Jazz Analysis,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 67: no. 1 (2014): 211. 40 Bang maintains a list of Guaraldi’s original compositions on his webpage, “Written by Vince Guaraldi,” Five Cents Please, http://fivecentsplease.org/dpb/vincebmi.html.

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GUARALDI’S INFLUENCES

3.1 Boogie-Woogie

Vince Guaraldi’s music was, like every artist’s, both a reflection of his myriad influences

and a product of its time. Guaraldi was born in 1928, and his first decades coincided with the

development and popularity of boogie-woogie, a style of blues piano playing characterized by

driving ostinato figures played by the pianist’s left hand. As Peter C. Muir writes for Oxford

Music Online, boogie-woogie “first emerged in the 1920s [. . .] acquired mainstream popularity

in the 1930s,” and continued to enjoy widespread influence and appeal throughout and past

the 1940s, when Guaraldi was a teenager.41

Boogie-woogie was one of Guaraldi’s earliest musical pursuits. In high school, he was a

skilled boogie-woogie pianist, a talent which earned him some popularity when he played for

his peers at parties.42 As Guaraldi reflected many years later, “[Boogie-woogie pianist] Jimmy

Yancy was a great early influence on my playing. Also Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, but it

was Yancy’s way of handling the blues that really grabbed me.”43 Guaraldi credits an episode of

Bing Crosby’s radio show Kraft Music Hall for first exposing him to boogie-woogie. As he

remembers, “some guy played it and explained the different basses. I learned my first tune in

G-flat – played on the black keys.”44

41 Peter C. Muir, “Boogie-Woogie,” Oxford Music Online, October 4, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2228520. 42 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 17. 43 Vince Guaraldi, quoted by Grover Sales, Jr., liner notes to Jazz Impressions, recorded 1956-57, Fantasy 3359, 1964. 44 Vince Guaraldi, quoted in Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 16.

14

This early musical influence played a significant role in shaping Guaraldi’s mature style.

Several of his original compositions feature ostinato bass lines played by his left hand, some of

which clearly resemble those common in boogie-woogie; however, as I discuss in section 5.1,

Guaraldi extended his use of such bass lines outside the context of boogie-woogie. Guaraldi’s

frequent use of dyads and double stops (discussed in section 4.3) also draws inspiration from

the vocabulary used by blues and boogie-woogie pianists.

3.2 Jazz

But Guaraldi was first and foremost a jazz pianist. Throughout his life, Guaraldi was an

active member of the San Francisco Bay Area jazz scene, beginning in 1949 with his return from

military service in Korea.45 This was the start of a particularly fruitful period for West Coast jazz.

The region was beginning to shake off its reputation as “the last bastion of white traditional

jazz, a final haven for the ‘moldy figs.’”46 California record labels like Fantasy (est. 1949) and

Pacific (est. 1952) released albums by future stars Dave Brubeck (1920–2012), Gerry Mulligan

(1927–1996), Chet Baker (1929–1988), and Cal Tjader. Their music was often marketed

(accurately or not) as “cool,” relaxed, and lighthearted, connotations evoked by their album

artwork. For example, as Ted Gioia writes about The Lighthouse All-Stars,

Each Lighthouse release seemed to outdo the previous one in presenting West Coast jazz as an offshoot of Southern California beach culture. The inevitable end-point was reached with the cover of the All-Stars’ sixth Contemporary album: The band is actually shown set up to play on the Hermosa Beach strand. The waves roll gently onto the shore a few dozen yards in the background.47

45 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 20. 46 Gioia, West Coast Jazz, 62. 47 Ibid, 196.

15

During the 1950s and into the 1960s, California was home to dozens of renowned jazz

clubs, including The Blackhawk, the hungry i, (Jimbo’s) Bop City, Fack’s, The Jazz Workshop, and

The Lighthouse (the namesake of the aforementioned All-Stars). Guaraldi played at each of

these. Indeed, Guaraldi recorded and performed with many West and East Coast jazz stars of

his time. The earliest publicly available recordings of Guaraldi were made in November 1951

with bandleader Cal Tjader on drums and vibraphone.48 In the ensuing decade, as a member of

Tjader’s group and others, Guaraldi recorded jazz albums with esteemed players like Eugene

Wright, Stan Getz (1927–1991), Scott LaFaro (1936–1961), Chico Hamilton (1921–2013), and Bill

Holman. He toured as a member of Woody Herman’s big band, performed with blues vocalist

Jimmy Witherspoon (1920–1997) and saxophonist Ben Webster (1909–1973),49 and played for

eight months as a member of the Lighthouse All-Stars.50 During this period, he also recorded his

first two complete albums as a leader.51

As his career progressed, Guaraldi’s jazz credentials and reputation only grew. In 1964,

he toured briefly with Benny Goodman (1909–1986), and in the 1970s, his trio at times included

renowned drummers Eliot Zigmund and Mike Clark. He was even admired by some jazz legends.

“Dizzy Gillespie loved Vince’s playing,” Larry Vuckovich, Guaraldi’s friend and only student,

remembered in 2016. “When Cal [Tjader] and Vince played at Birdland, alternating sets, Vince

48 Cal Tjader, The Cal Tjader Trio, recorded November 1951, Fantasy 3-9, 1953. 49 One such performance was filmed in 1962 and broadcast on an above-mentioned episode of the television show Jazz Casual. 50 A comprehensive timeline of Guaraldi’s known gigs can be found on Derrick Bang’s webpage “Vince Guaraldi Timeline,” Five Cents Please, http://fivecentsplease.org/dpb/VinceGuaralditimeline.html. 51 The Vince Guaraldi Trio, recorded April 1956, Fantasy 3-225, 1956; A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, recorded April 16, 1957, Fantasy 3-257, 1958.

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told me, ‘Dizzy had me sit in every night. I wound up playing two sets.’”52 Miles Davis was also

apparently a fan, at one point even asking Guaraldi to join his band. As Jerry Granelli

remembered, “Most people don’t know this, but Miles Davis loved Vince; he even wanted

Vince to come work with him. But Vince refused, saying, ‘Naaah … I already got a band, man.’”

Granelli continued, “Miles [. . .] [would] come in every night, and just sit there. He loved Vince’s

tune, ‘Star Song.’ So Miles would have a drink and say ‘Play that song, man.’ Every night! And it

freaked me out, because it was Miles, man!”53

It is from the jazz tradition that Guaraldi’s foundational approach to music derives.

Nearly all his recordings, including most of his compositions, follow a standard jazz head form:

statements of the melody (the head) bracket a period of improvisation, usually over the same

chord progression as the head. And his modus operandi when improvising is the template

established by bebop pianists like Bud Powell (1924–1966) and Red Garland (1923–1984):

monophonic right-hand passages accompanied by rhythmic left-hand chords. As Cal Tjader later

recalled, “He was very much influenced by Bud Powell in that early period, and he had

tremendous drive. He comped with his left hand like Powell, and played a lot of single-note

melodies with speed and agility in his right hand.”54 In a 1958 interview with Ralph Gleason,

Guaraldi credited as his greatest influences Earl Hines (1903–1983), Horace Silver (1928–2014),

Erroll Garner (1921–1977), Art Tatum (1909–1956), and Oscar Peterson.55 Several musical

52 Larry Vuckovich, “Larry Vuckovich: The Many Sides of Vince Guaraldi,” SFJAZZ, June 15, 2016, YouTube video. 53 Jerry Granelli, quoted in Derrick Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 118. 54 Cal Tjader, quoted in Bob Doerschuk, “Remembering the Man Behind ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind,’” Keyboard, July 1981, 12, retrieved fom the website of George Winston. 55 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 77.

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devices from the jazz dialect became part of Guaraldi’s personal sound; these are discussed

throughout chapters 4 and 5.

3.3 Afro-Cuban Music

Tjader in the 1950s (and beyond) pursued parallel careers in straight-ahead and Afro-

Cuban jazz. In fact, it is his work in the latter genre for which he is mostly remembered today.

So influential were Tjader’s Afro-Cuban recordings that Gioia dubs him “the father of Latin jazz

on the West Coast.”56 Guaraldi’s membership in Tjader’s group during this period placed him at

the center of the nascent West Coast “Latin” jazz scene. The group recorded the Cuban-

influenced track “Chopsticks Mambo” on their November 1951 session—Tjader’s first as a

bandleader—and by 1956 they were playing full sets of Afro-Cuban dance music.57 One

recording of this group was even released on Mongo Santamaria’s 1959 album Mongo.58

Afro-Cuban jazz had a tremendous influence on the Guaraldi sound. The rhythms and

harmonies of Afro-Cuban music permeate Guaraldi’s oeuvre. His compositions include

montuno-like ostinati and mambo-influenced repeating four-chord progressions—discussed in

section 5.2—and extended vamps over static harmony—discussed in sections 5.6 and 5.7.

56 Gioia, West Coast Jazz, 100. 57 Two such sets were recorded and released in 2012 in the form of the album The Cal Tjader Quintet: Live at Club Macumba San Francisco 1956, recorded September 3-16 or October 2-28, 1956, Acrobat Jazz ADDCD3084, 2012. 58 According to Derrick Bang, the track “Mazacote” was recorded in December 1958 during the same session that produced Tjader’s album A Night at the Blackhawk. This single track was, however, reserved for later release on Santamaria’s own album.

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3.4 Bossa Nova

Guaraldi remained a regular member of Tjader’s group until 1959, when he left to focus

on his solo career.59 The timing was auspicious. In the next few years, the bossa nova would

explode in popularity and prove to be a profound influence on Guaraldi’s maturing idiom.

Guaraldi’s interest in Brazilian music and bossa nova was likely first piqued by the movie

Black Orpheus60 (Portuguese: Orfeu Negro) in 1959. Filmed and set in Rio de Janeiro and

featuring mostly local actors, the movie enjoyed worldwide popularity. Its soundtrack—

featuring original music by now-renowned composers Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927–1994) and

Luis Bonfá (1922–2001)—is credited with popularizing bossa nova around the world.

Guaraldi was among those whose musical tastes were impacted by Black Orpheus. He

saw the movie more than once, owned the soundtrack, and in November 1961 began recording

for his future hit album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.61 In an interview released as part of

the 1964 documentary Anatomy of a Hit, Guaraldi was asked “Did you dig the soundtrack?” He

replied:

Yeah, I dug the soundtrack! I dug “Samba de Orpheus.” That’s the first tune I dug. I dug the tune and the scene in the movie. And then I had the soundtrack and I just kind of put it together. I was playing Samba de Orpheus for quite a long time before I even bothered to put it together. Fantasy records always wanted someone to do it. [. . .] They had in the back of their minds [that] it would make a good album. [. . .] Not necessarily just jazz [. . .]. [. . .] In fact, when I said I had a jazz impressions of it they were kind of surprised about it, because they didn’t even think of it as a jazz thing.62

59 Gioia, West Coast Jazz, 106. 60 Black Orpheus, directed by Marcel Camus, Dispat Films, June 12, 1959. 61 Vince Guaraldi, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded November 1961 and February 1962. 62 Moore, Anatomy of a Hit, “Program I: The Serendipity Groove,” 11:46.

19

Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus is aptly titled. Despite being clearly influenced by the

bossa nova and samba soundtrack of the album’s namesake, Guaraldi’s recording only ever

hints at the characteristic rhythms of these genres. For the most part, especially during solos,

the trio sticks to a familiar swing groove. And yet, the music still manages to capture the easy-

going, breezy, lighthearted quality of bossa nova. Indeed, this blend of swing and “Latin”

elements (both Afro-Cuban and Brazilian) became a hallmark of the Guaraldi sound, and is

discussed in more detail in section 5.5.

Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus marked a major turning point in Guaraldi’s career. It

was wildly successful, due in large part to the popularity of the single “Cast Your Fate to the

Wind”—one of two original compositions included on the album. As previously mentioned, the

single peaked at number twenty-two on Billboard’s “Hot 100” chart in February 196363 and

earned Guaraldi a Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition. To my ears, Jazz

Impressions of Black Orpheus marks the first recording of the Guaraldi sound in full maturity.

Nearly every one of the major devices I identify and discuss in this paper features prominently

on this album, including Guaraldi’s signature minor-3rd double stop (section 4.4), his Red

Garland block chord shout choruses (section 4.9), bass lines played by his left hand on the piano

(section 5.1), and his unpretentious blending of swing with Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music

(section 5.5).

Like so many others, Guaraldi continued to court Brazilian musical influences

throughout the 1960s. Indeed, the first half of the decade saw the bossa nova explode in

63 “Chart History: Vince Guaraldi Trio,” Billboard, accessed October 7, 2020, https://www.billboard.com/music/vince-guaraldi-trio/chart-history/HSI.

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popularity, spurred on by the 1962 release of Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd’s album Jazz Samba 64

(which, incidentally, was recorded the same month as the second of the two recording sessions

for Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus). One year later, Getz—with João Gilberto (1931–2019),

Astrud Gilberto, and Antônio Carlos Jobim—recorded Getz/Gilberto, one of only two jazz

albums to ever win the Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year.65 Guaraldi, meanwhile,

began a fruitful partnership with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete (1923–1987) which would last

from 1962 through 1965. Together they recorded bossa novas more in the vein of the two Getz

albums, employing mostly straight-eighth rhythms and only occasionally slipping into a swing

groove.

3.5 Eclecticism and Peanuts

As Ted Gioia notes, “Guaraldi was one of the few West Coast players who found his

career entering an upswing during the 1960s.”66 The success of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind”

presented Guaraldi with a diversity of opportunities to cultivate and refine his musical style. He

recorded The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi67 in 1963, an album which further showcased his

Cuban and Brazilian influences. On May 25, 1965, he accompanied an Episcopalian Mass with

original compositions that added jazz rhythm and harmony to centuries-old plainchant

melodies.68 In 1967, he recorded an album with the San Francisco Boys Chorus.69 And in late

64 Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, Jazz Samba, recorded February 13, 1962, Verve, 1962. 65 The other was Herbie Hancock’s 2007 album River: The Joni Letters. 66 Gioia, West Coast Jazz, 106. 67 Vince Guaraldi, The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, recorded mid-1963, Fantasy 3360, 1964. 68 This concert was recorded and published as Vince Guaraldi, The Grace Cathedral Concert, recorded May 21, 1965, Fantasy 3367, 1965. 69 Vince Guaraldi, Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967, D&D VG-1116, 1967.

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1968 and early 1969, he produced and recorded The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi,70 an album

containing little that could be called jazz, and on which Guaraldi can be heard playing guitar and

singing.

Easily the most lucrative projects in which Guaraldi was involved were the soundtracks

for the Peanuts animated shorts. The first such recordings took place in October 1964 and were

intended to accompany a planned documentary about the popular comic strip. While this

documentary was not released during Guaraldi’s lifetime,71 it led to the production of A Charlie

Brown Christmas72 in 1965. Today, the soundtrack for this television program is widely

recognized as part of American cultural heritage,73 and it remains the (at least) second-best-

selling jazz album of all time.

Guaraldi scored each subsequent Peanuts show that was produced during his lifetime,

and many of these recordings found their way onto separate musical releases. Guaraldi’s

compositions for Peanuts, as noted in section 2.2, bear all the same characteristics and

influences that mark Guaraldi’s non-Peanuts work. As such, several commentators, when

describing Guaraldi’s Peanuts music, have provided insight into the nature of the Guaraldi

sound: they emphasize its “Latin” influence.

Derrick Bang, describing the first recording sessions for Peanuts, writes, “While Guaraldi

had created these new compositions to reflect Charlie Brown’s gentle, kid-oriented universe,

70 Vince Guaraldi, The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi, recorded late 1968 early 1969, Warner Bros. WS 1775, 1969. 71 The documentary was issued on DVD in 2002 and sold exclusively at the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA. 72 Bill Melendez, dir., A Charlie Brown Christmas, produced by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson, originally aired on CBS on December 9, 1965. 73 Scott D. Elingburg, ”Vince Guaraldi, A Charlie Brown Christmas—Vince Guaraldi, Miles Davis, and LFO Walk Into a Bar,” McSweeney’s, December 7, 2015, https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/vince-guaraldi-a-charlie-brown-christmas-vince-guaraldi-miles-davis-and-lfo-walk-into-a-bar.

22

the pianist hadn’t strayed far from the bossa nova stylings that had characterized his recent

work.”74 Toby Gleason (son of Ralph Gleason and co-producer of the 2009 documentary

Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi) remarked in an interview with Bang, “The Peanuts songs are all

Latin-flavored jazz. Listen to the basic rhythms; they’re all Latin rhythms. The percussiveness is

toned down, and he put a lot of stuff on top, but the basic rhythms and melody structures are

Latin.”75 I think Gleason goes too far in claiming that all Peanuts songs are “Latin-flavored.”

Several are straight-ahead jazz pieces, and many later tracks draw from rock ‘n’ roll. However, I

agree that Brazilian and Cuban music were primary influences on the Guaraldi sound.

Ralph Gleason commented on Guaraldi’s maturing personal voice in the liner notes of

Guaraldi’s 1964 album The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi. Guaraldi was quick to credit his “Latin”

influences. As Gleason writes:

As we were playing this track over again, I mentioned to Vince that [. . .] he now has that mysterious quality in his playing that marks a real individual performer. You can always tell when it is Vince. “I found that sound when I got on my own,” he said. “It’s the center of my thoughts. Actually I’m not a Latin piano player. It’s just that I have impressions of Latin music from working in a Latin group. I like the music and the feeling of the music. So when I do a Latin thing, it’s Latin, really, only in the sense that I dig the music. Musically, I understand what they say and music reflects the language, you know.”76

3.6 Rock and Pop

In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Guaraldi was increasingly influenced by rock ‘n’

roll. His proximity to the San Francisco Bay Area placed him at the epicenter of the cultural and

musical revolution epitomized by the 1967 Summer of Love. San Francisco became known for

74 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 162. 75 Toby Gleason, quoted in Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 162. 76 Ralph Gleason, liner notes to Vince Guaraldi, The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, recorded mid-1963, Fantasy 3360, June 1964.

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fostering generation-defining acts like Jefferson Airplane, The Steve Miller Band, Creedence

Clearwater Revival,77 and The Grateful Dead. Unfortunately for jazz fans, this period also saw

the closing of many of the West Coast’s jazz clubs as the genre ebbed in popularity. Guaraldi—

like so many other jazz musicians of the time—began incorporating elements from rock and

pop into his own performances.

He added renditions of several popular songs into his repertory. A 2011 release titled An

Afternoon with the Vince Guaraldi Quartet comprises several recordings from a series of live

performances that took place in Los Gatos, California, between October 17 and 29, 1967. Five

of the nine tracks on this album are covers of popular songs of the time: the Beatles classic

“Eleanor Rigby,” country singer Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joel” (which reached number one

on the Billboard charts only a few months prior to Guaraldi’s recording), “Sunny Goodge Street”

by British singer/songwriter Donovan, the R&B/soul hit “Going Out of My Head” by Little

Anthony & The Imperials, and even a bossa nova interpretation of the theme to the 1960 movie

Exodus. Guaraldi continued to include pop and rock hits on his albums and in his performances

throughout the rest of his career, and he increasingly incorporated the electric and electronic

instruments that helped define the musical zeitgeist of the time. Derrick Bang opines that the

recordings on An Afternoon with the Vince Guaraldi Quartet “represent Guaraldi at the top of

his ‘classic’ form, mere months before he’d begin heavy experimentation with the electronic

keyboards that would take him on a fusion-laced detour for the next several years.”78

77 Incidentally, Guaraldi and Creedence Clearwater Revival shared a record label: Fantasy Records. 78 Bang, “Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD,” Five Cents Please, accessed September 26, 2020, http://www.fivecentsplease.org/dpb/vincecd.html.

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While Guaraldi’s music in the 1970s took clear influence from rock ‘n’ roll, it bears, to

my ears, scant resemblance to the music of The Headhunters, Weather Report, Mahavishnu

Orchestra, Return to Forever, or many of the other now-famous fusion bands of the time.

Instead, Guaraldi seems to have drawn from the “psychedelic” strain of rock that was fostered

in San Francisco during this period, with its emphasis on improvisation, loose structure, and

static harmonies. However, Guaraldi did share with these fusion bands a growing fondness for

electronic instruments, beginning with the electric bass. As Bang writes, Guaraldi “took the first

tentative steps toward moving with the times”79 when, in 1967, he asked his bassist Kelly Bryan

to play on an electric. In subsequent years, Guaraldi adopted into his arsenal the Fender

Rhodes, the Hammond B-3 Organ, the Hohner Clavinet, the Minimoog synthesizer, and even an

electric harpsichord.80

Fusion musicians were not always embraced by critics and jazz traditionalists. Jazz

musicians who played rock songs and electronic instruments were often accused of pandering

to less sophisticated audiences and being motivated more by financial concerns than artistic

ones. It does not seem, however, that Guaraldi’s embrace of electronic instruments and pop

repertory was merely an attempt to stay relevant or make money. He liked rock ‘n’ roll. In fact,

his first such cover dates to December 1962 when he recorded “Misirlou,”81 a folk song made

famous only two months earlier by Dick Dale’s surf rock version. Those who knew Guaraldi

remember his love of popular songs. In a 2011 interview with Derrick Bang, Kelly Bryan recalled:

Vince was showing a lot of interest in rock and pop. I remember going to a gig somewhere [. . .] and Vince was in the back seat. He was singing Aretha Franklin back-up

79 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 210. 80 According to Bang, this was “likely a Baldwin Combo Harpsichord, made only briefly during the mid- to late 1960s,” Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 255. 81 Vince Guaraldi, “Miserlou,” recorded December 4, 1962, track 3 on In Person, Fantasy 3352, 1963.

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riffs: the things the back-up girls would sing! It was obvious that he was listening to a lot of things. He loved The Beatles, and he also liked Motown quite a bit. He liked pop the way some jazz musicians did, although a lot of them still hoped that it would go away.82

By all accounts, Guaraldi reveled in the rock ‘n’ roll scene that was thriving in San

Francisco. “Vince wasn’t bothered by the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll; he embraced it,” his friend

Charles Gompertz remembered while speaking to Bang in 2010.83 Guaraldi and his band

performed at (now historic) rock venues like The Matrix and Fillmore West at volume levels that

rivaled those of rock bands.84 They played festivals that also featured rock and pop acts.

Guaraldi jammed and performed with Jerry Garcia (1942–1995), and rumors circulate that he

performed at least once with The Grateful Dead.85 “Things are changing fast in music around

here,” Guaraldi responded to interviewer Philip Elwood in 1968 when asked why he never

moved from San Francisco, “and I feel I’m part of this scene.”86

By 1970, rock music had fully seeped into Guaraldi’s idiom, blending neatly with his

blues, jazz, Brazilian, and Cuban influences. As Elwood noted in a review of a 1970 performance

at The Matrix, “[Guaraldi’s] technique is so sure and his touch so bold that everything sparkles.

He has a unique ability to create micro-sonatas—mood blues tunes which he expands into a

sort of bossa-bop-rock sound.”87 Guaraldi’s compositions during this period increasingly drew

from rock and pop, featuring electronic instruments, rock grooves, and static chord

progressions. These influences are discussed further in section 5.7. Ultimately, rock would be

82 Kelly Bryan, quoted in Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 207. 83 Charles Gompertz, quoted in Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 238. 84 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 239. 85 Derrick Bang, “Guaraldi and the Grateful Dead: Yes, No, Maybe?” Impressions of Vince (blog), May 11, 2012, http://impressionsofvince.blogspot.com/2012/05/guaraldi-and-grateful-dead-yes-no-maybe.html. 86 Philip Elwood, “Pianist with a Biting Attack,” San Francisco Examiner, November 5, 1968, 25. 87 Philip Elwood, “Swing Is Away From B’way,” San Francisco Examiner, January 10, 1970, 12.

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the last major influence on the Guaraldi sound; he died of a heart attack between sets while

playing a gig in Menlo Park on February 6, 1976.

3.7 Posthumous Reputation

Although Guaraldi enjoyed a successful career during his life, his popularity waned in

the decades following his death and into the mid-1980s. Derrick Bang suggests a few reasons

for Guaraldi’s lackluster posthumous reputation. First, West Coast jazz was quickly going out of

fashion in the late 1960s, replaced by rock ‘n’ roll and pop. This shift in the public’s musical

tastes was evidenced by the closing of so many of the area’s jazz venues. Bang writes that by

1967, “The famed San Francisco jazz scene was in serious trouble, fending off attacks from two

fronts: the increasingly ubiquitous strip clubs and the encroachment of rock ‘n’ roll. Of the

several dozen venues that had offered jazz in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, only half a dozen

remained. Many of the others had folded; others had switched their focus.”88

Second, Guaraldi’s reputation may have stagnated from his association with the West

Coast. Record companies, publishers, jazz writers, and perhaps the natural human tendency

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) called the “narcissism of small differences” stoked a kind of rivalry

between the West and East coasts. California jazz musicians had a reputation (fair or not) for

being unserious or frivolous.89 Fame was earned in New York, and Guaraldi never moved far

from his home of San Francisco. As Ted Gioia explains in West Coast Jazz, “With few exceptions,

the musicians who went back east made the big reputations [. . .] while the players who stayed

88 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 206. 89 Ibid, 301.

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out west, especially those with harder, bop-oriented styles, merely made music.” 90 Guaraldi,

early in his career especially, was in many ways just this kind of West Coast player.

Third, jazz musicians and critics are sometimes suspicious of popularity. As Bang writes,

“The nature of Guaraldi’s success worked against him. Writing music for Charlie Brown was

perceived as the blatantly commercial act of a total square. Guaraldi’s status as an innovator

[. . .] was buried beneath his image as a purveyor of bland, easy-listening jazz.”91 Guaraldi was

certainly not the only jazz musician whose critical reception suffered due to his broad appeal

and financial success. This topic is explored further in chapter 6.

In 1985, the release of David Benoit’s recording of Guaraldi’s “Linus and Lucy”92 sparked

a resurgence of appreciation for the late composer. Since then, Guaraldi’s popularity has grown

significantly. A Google Books Ngram search shows increasing mentions of Guaraldi in print since

the 1980s.93 Google Trends shows spikes in searches for Guaraldi every December.94

Newspapers.com reports mentions of Guaraldi in U.S. periodicals from this decade at nearly the

rate that he was mentioned in the 1960s.95 He was the subject of an award-winning feature-

length documentary in 2009.96 His Grace Cathedral Concert was recreated as recently as 2015,

once by Sacramento-based pianist Jim Martinez97 and again by Rev. Bill Carter for a religious

90 Gioia, West Coast Jazz, 365. 91 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 301. 92 David Benoit, “Linus and Lucy,” recorded March 11-12, 1985, track 4 on This Side Up, En Pointe ENP 0001, 1986. 93 Google Books Ngram Viewer, search results for “Vince Guaraldi,” https://books.google.com/ngrams. 94 Google Trends, search results for “Vince Guaraldi,” https://trends.google.com. 95 Newspapers.com, search results for “Vince Guaraldi,” https://www.newspapers.com. 96 Thomas and Gleason, The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi. 97 Gary Moskowitz, “Vince Guaraldi’s Jazz Mass Re-Created for Grace Cathedral,” SF Weekly, August 7, 2015, http://www.sfweekly.com/music/vince-guaraldis-jazz-mass-re-created-for-grace-cathedral.

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service in Summit, Pennsylvania.98 In July 2019, the National Music Council of the United States

honored Vince Guaraldi with their American Eagle Award “in recognition of [his] long-term

contributions to American musical culture,” noting that Guaraldi’s “influence on the spread and

appreciation of jazz as an international art form has been profound among generations of

young listeners.”99 His compositions have been covered by musicians of the highest caliber (like

Chick Corea,100 Brad Mehldau,101 Wynton and Ellis Marsalis,102 and Dave Brubeck103), and they

continue to be. Former Guaraldi bandmate Jerry Granelli released an album in June 2020

dedicated in part to the compositions of Vince Guaraldi.104

98 Church on the Hill, bulletin for September 6, 2015, https://www.fpccs.org/docs/Bulletins/Bulletin_2015-09-06.pdf. 99 American Music Teacher, 69: no. 2 (October/November 2019), 59. 100 Chick Corea, “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” recorded 1989, track 4 on Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown!, GRP Records GRD 9596, 1989. 101 Brad Mehldau, “Christmas Time Is Here,” track 10 on Warner Bros. Jazz Christmas Party, Warner Bros. Records 9362-46793-2, 1997. 102 Wynton Marsalis and Ellis Marsalis, Joe Cool’s Blues, recorded April 12, June 14, and August 25, 1994, Columbia CK66880, 1995. 103 Brubeck contributed original compositions to Peanuts in addition to renditions of Guaraldi’s original compositions. Several can be heard on Dave Brubeck, Quiet as the Moon, recorded September 20-21 and December 27, 1988, Music Masters 65067-2, 1991. 104 Jerry Granelli, The Jerry Granelli Trio Plays Vince Guaraldi and Mose Allison, recorded 2019, RareNoiseRecords RNR120, 2020.

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ELEMENTS OF GUARALDI’S IMPROVISATIONAL STYLE

4.1 Bebop Roots

Early in his career especially, Guaraldi’s primary approach to the instrument followed

the template that was established in the 1940s by early innovators of bebop piano, notably Bud

Powell, and that was developed further by Guaraldi’s contemporaries. Ethan Iverson describes

Guaraldi’s playing on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus as “a light and competent mix of Red

Garland and Bill Evans.”105 Like Powell, Garland, and Evans (but unlike many jazz pianists from

prior decades), Guaraldi played mostly monophonically with his right hand—one note at a time.

His lines adhered to standard conventions of the bebop dialect: they consisted mostly of eighth

notes and implied the undergirding harmony by placing chord tones on strong beats of the

measure.

Ex. 4.1.1 shows a segment of Guaraldi’s solo on his April 1956 recording of “Fascinating

Rhythm.”106 Guaraldi omits his left hand entirely and plays only eighth notes in his right hand.

His phrases outline the harmony. He uses non-chord tones—passing and neighbor tones—to

ensure that chord tones fall on strong beats. In the second half of the first measure shown,

Guaraldi plays C♭ on an upbeat as a chromatic passing tone between C and B♭, chord tones of

the anticipated C7 chord. This short phrase is characteristic of the bebop dialect—so much so

105 Iverson, “Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi.” 106 Vince Guaraldi, “Fascinating Rhythm,” track 3 on The Vince Guaraldi Trio, recorded April 1956, Fantasy 3-225, September 1956.

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that David Baker, in his 1985 book How to Play Bebop Vol. 1,107 coined the term “bebop scale”

to describe using the major 7th as a passing tone on dominant chords.108

Example 4.1.1: “Fascinating Rhythm,” four measures of Guaraldi’s solo.109

Like many beboppers, Guaraldi liked to play fast—as least as much as his technique

would allow. “Fascinating Rhythm” was played at 280 BPM. “I’ll Remember April”110 from Cal

Tjader’s Jazz at The Blackhawk pushes 290. Ex. 4.1.2 shows what Guaraldi played with his right

hand on the second four measures of his solo on the latter recording. Typical of the bebop

dialect, Guaraldi’s line is a stream of eighth notes, and he implies a C7 bebop scale by using a

passing major 7th between beats 1 and 2 of m. 1 of Ex. 4.1.2. He seems to imply a resolution to

FMaj7 too early. In both m. 2 and m. 3, he arpeggiates an FMaj7 chord. This suggests, perhaps,

that his command of the bebop language—at least at this fast tempo—was not absolute. This

could also be considered an instance of harmonic generalization, a concept Jerry Coker defines

in his 1991 book Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improviser as “when an

improviser chooses one scale to accommodate two or more chords of a progression.”111 In any

107 David Baker, How to Play Bebop, Vol. 1 (Alfred, 1985). 108 It should be noted, however, that Baker coined the term “bebop scale” to describe what musicians had been already playing for decades. It is unlikely that Guaraldi (let alone Charlie Parker) conceptualized his own lines the way Baker later would. 109 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 71. 110 Cal Tjader Quartet, “I’ll Remember April,” track 3 on Jazz at the Blackhawk, recorded January 20, 1957, Fantasy LP 3-241, May 1957. 111 Jerry Coker, “Harmonic Generalization,” in Elements of the Jazz Language of the Developing Improviser (Alfred, 1991), 45-49.

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case, the speed of the passage disguises this possible imprecision, and I have come to recognize

it and similar phrases as characteristic of the Guaraldi sound.

Example 4.1.2: “I’ll Remember April,” second four measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

4.2 The 3-♭9 Lick

As with his use of the bebop scale, Guaraldi borrowed much of his vocabulary from the

broader jazz dialect. Although dialectal jazz phrases are (by definition) not unique to Guaraldi’s

playing, he played many with enough frequency that they became signifiers of his personal

idiom. Coker devotes a chapter of his book, titled “3-♭9,” to one such phrase, describing the

“melodic motion from the 3rd of a dominant seventh chord to the flatted 9th of the same

chord” as “an extremely common occurrence in improvised solos.”112 Guaraldi played the 3-♭9

lick all the time. Several early examples can be found in the August 1955 recording “Calling Dr.

Funk,”113 a Guaraldi original whose title references his then-nickname.114 Ex. 4.2.1 shows four

3-♭9 licks from Guaraldi’s solo, each of which occurs over A7.

112 Jerry Coker, “3-♭9” in Elements of the Jazz Language of the Developing Improviser (Alfred, 1991), 26-32. 113 Vince Guaraldi, “Calling Dr. Funk,” track 1 on The Jazz Scene: San Francisco, recorded August 1955, Fantasy FCD-24760-2, 1956. 114 Doug Ramsey, quoted in Scott Simon, host, NPR Weekend Edition, “A Jazz Pianist, Happy To Work For ‘Peanuts,’” November 27, 2009, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120892574.

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Example 4.2.1: “Calling Dr. Funk,” four examples of the 3-♭9 lick.115

On his 1965 recording of “O Tannenbaum”116 from A Charlie Brown Christmas, Guaraldi

plays a 3-♭9 lick over nearly every Am7-D7♭9 progression throughout the recording. Coker

reports that the 3-♭9 lick is often played both “from the 3rd up to the ♭9” and “from the 3rd

down to the ♭9.”117 In this recording, however, Guaraldi plays only the former.118 Ex. 4.2.2

shows four instances of Guaraldi playing the 3-♭9 lick on “O Tannenbaum.”

115 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 23-25. 116 Vince Guaraldi, “O Tannenbaum,” track 1 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 117 Coker, Elements of the Jazz Language, 26.

118 Coker also notes that the 3-♭9 lick occurs in m. 8 of the melody of Charlie Parker’s well-known composition “Billie’s Bounce.” Guaraldi was familiar with this tune; he recorded it February 6, 1974, and it was released on the album Live on the Air under the incorrect title “Now’s the Time.”

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Example 4.2.2: “O Tannenbaum,” four examples of the 3-♭9 lick.119

Especially when playing quickly, Guaraldi often arpeggiates from the 3rd to the ♭9th of

dominant 7th chords, outlining a diminished 7th chord built from the 3rd of the dominant

chord. In context, this arpeggiation often comes across as a single flourish, aided perhaps by the

technical ease with which it can be played on the piano. The notes are not always carefully

placed within a rhythmic grid; instead, they are played as a single gesture. This has the effect of

increasing the rhythmic density of a passage, and indeed Guaraldi often plays this arpeggio

within phrases of fast sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, and sixteenth note triplets. Ex. 4.2.3

shows two instances of Guaraldi playing a 3-♭9 arpeggio over G7♭9 on his recording of Henry

Mancini’s “Moon River.”120

119 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 38-41. 120 Vince Guaraldi, “Moon River,” track 6 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962.

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Example 4.2.3: “Moon River,” two examples of the 3-♭9 lick.121

Ex. 4.2.4 shows four instances of Guaraldi playing a 3-♭9 lick during his solo on one of his

several recordings of “Autumn Leaves.”122 These demonstrate a common and characteristic

way that Guaraldi plays the 3-♭9 lick. Over a ii-V progression,123 Guaraldi arpeggiates the root

position ii chord, resolves the 7th of the ii chord down a half-step to the 3rd of the V chord,

leaps up to the ♭9 of the V chord, then arpeggiates down to resolve. Guaraldi could execute this

phrase very quickly and tends to do so within fast passages.

Example 4.2.4: “Autumn Leaves,” four examples of the 3-♭9 lick.124

121 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 137. 122 Vince Guaraldi, “Autumn Leaves,” track 16 on disc 2 of The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, recorded October 26, 1964, Fantasy FAN-31462, 2009. 123 Or, frequently, just over a ii or V chord. Within the bebop dialect, ii chords and V chords are often treated as a single harmony. Thus, phrases that work over the ii or the V can be played over either. 124 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 4-6.

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Ex. 4.2.5 shows Guaraldi playing a similar pattern twice in succession during his solo on

“Samba de Orpheus.”125 He begins each phrase with an arpeggio of Gm7 then resolves the 7th

of Gm (F) down to the 3rd (E) of the implied C7 chord. This time, he then arpeggiates up to the

♭9 (D♭) before resolving down a half-step.

Example 4.2.5: “Samba de Orpheus,” two sequential arpeggiated 3-♭9 licks.126

Another of Guaraldi’s characteristic uses of the 3-♭9 arpeggio can be heard several times

in his 1962 recording of Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz.”127 Guaraldi adds movement to an

otherwise harmonically static passage by implying a V7♭9 harmony using a 3-♭9 arpeggio within

a longer phrase. In this case, Guaraldi briefly implies C7♭9 over four measures of F7. Ex. 4.2.6

shows three instances from two separate phrases of his solo on “Jitterbug Waltz.” In the first

instance (m.2 of the first system) Guaraldi’s left-hand voicing also implies a dominant chord,

making Guaraldi’s temporary modulation here clear. In the second and third instance (m. 1 and

m. 4 of the second system), although Guaraldi alternates voicings for F7 and C7♯9 in his left

hand, these voicings do not line up with the harmony being implied in his right hand.

125 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus,” track 1 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 126 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 168. 127 Vince Guaraldi, “Jitterbug Waltz,” track 5 on In Person, recorded December 4, 1962, Fantasy 3352, June 10, 1963.

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Example 4.2.6: “Jitterbug Waltz,” three examples of the 3-♭9 lick.128

4.3 Dyads and Double Stops

In blues and boogie-woogie piano playing, many dialectal phrases involve playing

dyads—two notes at once—with the right hand. Guaraldi played dyads frequently, a technique

which lent many of his phrases a distinctly bluesy quality. These phrases contrast somewhat

with his more bebop-oriented single-note lines, and they reveal the influence of boogie-woogie

on Guaraldi’s playing. Playing two or more notes in the right hand was more common than not

in the early jazz piano tradition—ragtime and stride compositions rarely called for merely one

right-hand note at a time—but the technique differs from the most common approach of

bebop and post-bebop pianists, who tended to favor single-note right-hand passages. One

common phrase within the blues piano dialect involves playing parallel 3rds or 6ths that move

from the 3rd and 5th of a major or dominant chord to the root and 3rd, respectively (or vice-

128 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 115.

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versa). Guaraldi used this phrase prominently in the melody of his composition “Treat

Street,”129 the opening measures of which are shown in Ex. 4.3.1.

Example 4.3.1: “Treat Street,” first three measures of the head.

Guaraldi’s dyads typically spell 3rds, 6ths, 4ths, and 5ths—the intervals found within

triads in all inversions. He plays dyads both while improvising and (as in the above example)

while interpreting a composed melody. On “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,”130 Guaraldi plays

dyads derived from triads. Ex. 4.3.2 shows the first phrase of the A section, in which Guaraldi

harmonizes the melody (the top note) with the next lowest note of the triad indicated by the

chord symbol.

Example 4.3.2: “Cast Your Fate to Wind,” first four measures of the head.131

On a few recordings, especially those on which Guaraldi maintains a boogie-woogie-

style left-hand ostinato (see section 5.1), dyads comprise most of what Guaraldi plays with his

right hand. Ex. 4.3.3 shows the first phrase of the B section of “The Masked Marvel.”132 Guaraldi

129 Vince Guaraldi, “Treat Street,” track 5 on The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, recorded Summer 1963. 130 Vince Guaraldi, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” track 5 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 131 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 36. 132 Vince Guaraldi, “The Masked Marvel,” track 1 on Alma-Ville, recorded October 1969. A full transcription is included as Appendix B.

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plays mostly dyads. The notes of each dyad spell the chord in each measure—except the notes

in m. 4 of the example, which anticipate the following C7 and include passing tones like those in

Ex. 4.3.1. Guaraldi favors parallel 3rds and 6ths, using contrary motion only at the end of m. 2

when switching from one interval to the other.

Example 4.3.3: “The Masked Marvel,” eight measures of the B section.

A special case of a dyad occurs in m. 2 of the second system of Ex. 4.3.3. Guaraldi holds

the top note (A♭) while he moves the bottom note up a whole step. This technique is highly

characteristic of the blues piano dialect. In their podcast You’ll Hear It, pianists Adam Maness

and Peter Martin coin the term bluesy double stop to refer to the family of dialectal blues piano

phrases in which a single note is held or repeated while another note moves.133 The term

originated to describe the technique of playing any two notes at once on a bowed stringed

instrument. As Maness explained to me in an email, “When strings play different notes at the

same time on different strings, they’re called stops. Double, Triple, and sometimes even Quad

Stops (although you can’t really play those at exactly the same time) are common in string

133 Peter Martin and Adam Maness, hosts, “Our Favorite Bluesy Double Stops,” You’ll Hear It (podcast), February 17, 2020, http://youllhearit.com/our-favorite-bluesy-double-stops-youll-hear-it.

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writing.”134 The term “double stop” is useful in the context of jazz and blues piano to refer to

several dialectal phrases that involve dyads whose notes move obliquely in this way.135

A clear example of Guaraldi using blues-inspired double stops comes from his April 1956

recording of “Fenwyck’s Farfel.”136 Near the end of the second of three choruses of his solo,

Guaraldi plays a series of double stops, first with C, then with B♭ on top. Against the static top

notes, the lower notes of each dyad stand out as the melody. Ex. 4.3.4 shows this short

segment.

Example 4.3.4: “Fenwyck’s Farfel,” three measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

“Detained in San Ysidro”137 is structured similarly to “Masked Marvel.” Throughout,

Guaraldi plays an ostinato figure in his left hand that, as noted in section 5.2, implies a

harmonic progression common in Afro-Cuban music. In his right hand, Guaraldi plays mostly

dyads. Ex. 4.3.5 shows the first four measures of his solo. In m. 1-3 of the example, Guaraldi

plays 6ths derived from the sounding triad. In m. 4 Guaraldi plays parallel diatonic 4ths.

134 Adam Maness, email message to author, September 14, 2020. 135 In the podcast episode, Maness and Martin describe and demonstrate many phrases and techniques that they refer to as “bluesy double stops.” While they mostly emphasize the kind involving static top notes and moving bottom notes, they also discuss instances of parallel 4ths, harmonizing just a single note of a longer phrase, and idiomatic blues licks involving parallel 3rds. 136 Vince Guaraldi, “Fenwyck’s Farfel,” track 2 on Vince Guaraldi Trio, recorded April 1956. 137 Vince Guaraldi, “Detained in San Ysidro,” track 3 on Alma-Ville, recorded October 10, 1969.

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Example 4.3.5: “Detained in San Ysidro,” first four measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

4.4 Minor-3rd Double Stops

A special case of a double stop occurs in m. 3 of the above example. Guaraldi plays a

minor 3rd, approaching the bottom note chromatically with two quick grace notes. Or,

described differently, he holds the top note of a perfect 4th while quickly moving the bottom

note up two half steps to create a minor 3rd. This chromatically approached minor-3rd double

stop is perhaps the most easily recognized signature of the Guaraldi sound; it strikes me as far

more indicative of Guaraldi’s personal idiom than of the broader jazz dialect.138 Its

recognizability stems in part from its use in the melody of Guaraldi’s most well-known

composition: the theme song to Peanuts, “Linus and Lucy.”139

The B section of “Linus and Lucy” is in stop-time. Ex. 4.4.1 shows the first four measures.

After a series of chordal hits on D♭ and E♭, Guaraldi plays minor-3rd double stops on F and A♭ in

a hemiola rhythm, each time sliding to the F chromatically from the E♭ below.

138 When I play this minor-3rd double stop, even non-musicians have commented to me that it reminds them of “that Peanuts song.” 139 Vince Guaraldi, “Linus and Lucy,” track 6 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964, Fantasy 5017, 1964. This piece was also released on A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), and Guaraldi recorded it at least seven more times since; it became a staple of his repertory.

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Example 4.4.1: “Linus and Lucy,” B section minor-3rd double stops.140

In Ex. 4.4.1, Guaraldi repeats the top A♭ while moving the lower note. This is less

common; more often Guaraldi holds the top note. In fact, the notation here is not altogether

accurate. The top note of the lick is struck at the same time as the note a perfect 4th below it.

Then, while the top note is (usually) held, the bottom note “slides” upwards two half-steps.

Ex. 4.4.2 shows on the left how the phrase is played (with possible fingering suggested) and on

the right how it is most commonly notated throughout this study.

Example 4.4.2: Two ways of notating Guaraldi’s minor-3rd double stop.

Although Guaraldi played blues phrases with dyads and double stops in his earliest

recordings, before 1957 he rarely played this specific and characteristic lick. The earliest

example I have found so far of Guaraldi playing his signature minor-3rd double stop comes

from an April 15, 1957, recording under the leadership of Cal Tjader. On “Willow Weep for Me,”

one of the pieces included in a medley arrangement,141 Guaraldi plays the melody of the A

section using minor-3rd double stops. This excerpt is shown in Ex. 4.4.3.

140 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 123. 141 Cal Tjader Quartet, “Medley: Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?) / Willow Weep for Me / ‘Round Midnight,” track 13 on Our Blues, recorded April 15, 1957, Fantasy FCD-24771-2, 2002.

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Example 4.4.3: “Willow Weep for Me” with Cal Tjader, first four measures of A section.

The very next day, on April 16, 1957, Guaraldi recorded “Willow Weep for Me” for his

second album as a bandleader, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing.142 He played the melody

similarly—using minor-3rd double stops on the A sections. This recording also contains one of

the first clear instances of Guaraldi using this device as part of an improvised solo, the first few

measures of which are shown in Ex. 4.4.4. He plays the same double stop that he played during

the head.

Example 4.4.4: “Willow Weep for Me,” four measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

142 Vince Guaraldi, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, recorded April 16, 1957, Fantasy 3-257, April 1958.

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After 1957 Guaraldi seemed to use this device with increasing frequency; it quickly

became a signature part of his idiom. A recording of “Summertime”143 from the 1958 Monterey

Jazz Festival finds Guaraldi playing many kinds of double stops. He opens his first solo of the set

with a double stop like that in the previous example except built on a perfect 4th instead of a

minor 3rd. Ex. 4.4.5 shows the beginning of his second chorus. Guaraldi plays minor-3rd double

stops in all three measures shown. On beat 3 of m. 2 of the example, Guaraldi raises the top

note of the minor 3rd to create a perfect 4th. At the end of m. 1 and into the beginning of m.2,

Guaraldi plays a dialectal bluesy double stop built from the D blues scale.144

Example 4.4.5: “Summertime” with Cal Tjader, first three measures of second chorus of Guaraldi’s solo.

Guaraldi’s use of his (by this time) signature minor-3rd double stop reached a zenith

perhaps in the mid-1960s, when, at times, the device constituted the primary motive of his

improvised solos. Guaraldi plays it on every track on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. On

“Samba de Orpheus”145 alone, I counted more than fifty instances.146 It constitutes the

dominant motive of the arrangement, featuring in nearly every part of Guaraldi’s playing. He

143 Cal Tjader, “Summertime,” track 2 on The Best of Cal Tjader: Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival 1958-1980, recorded October 4, 1958, Concord/Monterey Jazz Festival Records MJFR-30701, 2008.

144 Nomenclature differs; I mean the six-note scale that includes D, F, G, A♭, A, and C. 145 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus,” track 1 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 146 The song is 5:43 in length, so approximating 50 instances over that length suggests an approximate average of rate of one instance of his signature minor-3rd double stop every seven seconds. Since Guaraldi lays out during the first 0:58 of the recording, the approximate average is closer to once every six seconds of time that Guaraldi is playing.

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plays the device as part of his interpretation of the melody (Ex. 4.4.6), during his improvised

solo (Ex. 4.4.7), repeatedly in succession (Ex. 4.4.8), and in single instances during longer

phrases (Ex. 4.4.9).

Example 4.4.6: “Samba de Orpheus,” minor-3rd double stops on the head.147

Example 4.4.7: “Samba de Orpheus,” minor-3rd double stops on Guaraldi’s solo.148

Example 4.4.8: “Samba de Orpheus,” minor-3rd double stops several times in a row.149

Example 4.4.9: “Samba de Orpheus,” single minor-3rd double stop.150

147 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 161. 148 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 163-4. 149 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 162. 150 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 167.

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Guaraldi’s minor-3rd double stop also features prominently during the head and solo of

his 1964 recording of “Charlie Brown Theme.”151 In m. 7 and m. 8, shown in Ex. 4.4.10, Guaraldi

plays the minor-3rd double stop as part of the arrangement of the head. Ex. 4.4.11 shows a

segment of his solo in which he plays the device several times in succession.

Example 4.4.10: “Charlie Brown Theme,” minor-3rd double stops on the head.152

Example 4.4.11: “Charlie Brown Theme,” minor-3rd double stops on Guaraldi’s solo.153

Over time, the minor-3rd double stop became an iconic part of Vince Guaraldi’s

personal idiom and a highly characteristic feature of the Guaraldi sound. On “Cast Your Fate to

the Wind,” Guaraldi uses it to both begin and end his solo. Ex. 4.4.12 shows the opening

measures of his solo on the original recording from Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.154

Guaraldi plays the device in two positions: on F and A♭, and on G and B♭. Ex. 4.4.13 shows the

final segment of this solo. Guaraldi plays the device on C and A♭ several times, between which

the band plays punctuating hits.

151 Vince Guaraldi, “Charlie Brown Theme,” track 5 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 152 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 29. 153 Ibid., 31. 154 Vince Guaraldi, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded November 1961 and February 1962, Fantasy 3337, April 1962.

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Example 4.4.12: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” first four measures of Guaraldi’s solo.155

Example 4.4.13: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” last phrase of Guaraldi’s solo.156

In the context of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” the minor-3rd double stop is not merely

idiomatic, it is arguably part of the piece’s intraopus style and a theme of the composition itself.

Although the device was not explicitly part of the composed melody, Guaraldi played it as part

of his solo on nearly every recording of the piece. Phrases nearly identical to those shown in

Ex. 4.4.12 and 4.4.13 also occur in the published alternate take from the same recording

session,157 and Guaraldi plays his minor-3rd double stop within the first few measures of his

solo on every subsequent recording of the composition that I have come across.158

155 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 38. 156 Ibid., 39. 157 Vince Guaraldi, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind (take 3) – Alternate Take,” track 13 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus [Original Jazz Classics Remasters] (OJC Remaster), recorded February 1962, Fantasy OJCCD-437-2 [OJC-32328], October 2010. 158 The two takes from Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, the October 1967 recording from An Afternoon with the

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4.5 Peak 4th Phrases

Another highly characteristic idiom of Vince Guaraldi’s involves emphasizing the 4th of a

major or dominant chord by playing it at the peak of a phrase or on a strong beat. At first

glance, the diatonic 4th is an unusual choice to play prominently on a major or dominant chord,

since it can sound dissonant against the chord’s major 3rd. For this reason, Mark Levine, in The

Jazz Theory Book,159 refers to the 4th of dominant and major chords as an “avoid note,”

observing that, although it fits in the chord’s associated scale, it can sound dissonant when not

handled with care.160 In the context of what I call a peak 4th phrase, Guaraldi typically treats

the 4th as a neighbor tone. He tends to approach the 4th by step up from the 3rd then descend

back down to the 3rd or to another strong chord tone.161 The other notes of the phrase are

typically the 5th, root, 2nd, and 3rd of the chord, often in that order from bottom to top.

A prototypical example of a peak 4th phrase can be heard on “Charlie Brown Theme.”162

Over a D7 chord, Guaraldi approaches the 4th (G) with a line comprising the root (D), 2nd (E),

and 3rd (F♯) of the chord. D and F♯ (chord tones) land on strong beats (4 and 1, respectively).

Guaraldi plays G on beat 2 (another strong beat), then immediately descends back to F♯. This

segment is shown in Ex. 4.5.1

Vince Guaraldi Quartet, the circa-1965 recording from The Navy Swings, the 1974 recording from Live on the Air, an alternate take published on the compilation album North Beach, and an undated take included on the CD The Charlie Brown Suite & Other Favorites. 159 Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Petaluma, CA: Sher Music Co., 1995). 160 In fact, Levine offers an important qualification on page 37 of The Jazz Theory Book, writing that “‘Avoid note’ is not a very good term, because it implies that you shouldn’t play the note at all. A better name would be a ‘handle with care’ note. Unfortunately, that’s not as catchy, so I’ll (reluctantly) stick with the term ‘avoid’ note.” 161 It is worth noting that the resolution of 4 to 3 is considered strong in Western European tonal music theory. 162 Vince Guaraldi, “Charlie Brown Theme,” track 5 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964.

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Example 4.5.1: “Charlie Brown Theme,” peak 4th phrase during Guaraldi’s solo.163

On “Ginza Samba”164 Guaraldi plays a similar shape while resolving F7 to B♭Maj7 in the

segment of his solo shown in Ex. 4.5.2. The 4th of B♭Maj7 (E♭) is preceded by F and D, chord

tones of B♭Maj, and followed by a downward arpeggiation of the triad. In this context,

however, another analysis is possible. E♭ is the 7th of the preceding F7 chord, and it resolves to

D, the 3rd of B♭, on the downbeat of the next measure. This resolution strengthens the

harmonic implication of the line, since the 7-3 resolution is among the strongest indicators of

harmonic movement in jazz music.165

Example 4.5.2: “Ginza Samba,” peak 4th phrase during Guaraldi’s solo.166

163 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 30. 164 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “Ginza Samba,” track 3 on From All Sides, recorded mid-January 1965, Fantasy 3362, 1965. 165 Jerry Coker, “7-3 Resolution,” in Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improviser, 19-25. This movement is, in essence, the same as the 4 to 3 movement mentioned in footnote 161. 166 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 101.

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On his solo on 1967’s “Newport Theme,”167 Guaraldi plays several peak 4th phrases, the

first of which occurs in the first measure of his solo. Each occurs over A♭Maj or D♭Maj; Ex. 4.5.3

shows two instances of each. Ex. 4.5.4 and 4.5.5 each show Guaraldi playing a peak 4th phrase

derived from A♭ or D♭ over a D7. In Ex. 4.5.5, the last note of m. 1 is F♯, the 3rd of the sounding

D7 chord; however, in context, it sounds like a G♭ that implies a peak 4th phrase anticipating

the following D♭Maj7. In m. 2 of Ex. 4.5.5, Guaraldi’s top note alternates between C (the 7th of

D7) and D♭ (or C♯). In any other context, this alternation between the major and dominant 7th

chord tones might sound unconventional, but here it simply sounds like a peak 4th phrase from

the preceding A♭Maj7.

Example 4.5.3: “Newport Theme,” four peak 4th phrases during Guaraldi’s solo.

Example 4.5.4: “Newport Theme,” peak 4th phrase anticipating D♭Maj7.

167 Vince Guaraldi, “Newport Theme,” track 8 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. A complete transcription is included as Appendix A.

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Example 4.5.5: “Newport Theme” peak 4th phrase implying preceding A♭Maj7.

Sometimes Guaraldi only hints at the idiom. On “Jitterbug Waltz,”168 Guaraldi opens his

solo by repeating a short phrase that moves from the root, to the 3rd, to the 4th, and back

down again on the same notes. This is shown in Ex. 4.5.6.

Example 4.5.6: “Jitterbug Waltz,” first measures of Guaraldi’s solo.169

Ex. 4.5.7 shows a nearly identical phrase from Guaraldi’s solo on Henry Mancini’s “Mr.

Lucky.”170 In this context, the notes C, E, and F do not clearly belong to the chords over which

they are played (A7♯5 and D7). Instead, they are best understood as derived from the key

center of the passage, C major, in which they are the root, 3rd, and 4th, respectively. This is an

instance of harmonic generalization.

168 Vince Guaraldi, “Jitterbug Waltz,” track 5 on In Person, recorded December 4, 1962, Fantasy 3352, June 10, 1963. 169 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 114. 170 Vince Guaraldi, “Mr. Lucky,” track 1 on The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, recorded Summer 1963.

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Example 4.5.7: “Mr. Lucky,” peak 4th phrase implying C major.171

In a segment of his solo on “Linus and Lucy,”172 shown in Ex. 4.5.8, Guaraldi plays a peak

4th phrase over D♭Maj. The way he plays it in this instance, however, bears special mention. He

plays the 4th (G♭) as the top note of a dyad. Preceding this is a specific sequence of dyads that

constitutes a phrase that is both idiomatic to Guaraldi and part of the composition’s intraopus

style. This sequence is known as horn 5ths, and it forms another idiomatic part of the Guaraldi

sound.

Example 4.5.8: “Linus and Lucy,” peak 4th phrase using horn 5ths.173

4.6 Horn 5ths

Oxford Music Online defines a horn 5th as “a type of hidden 5ths occurring when each

part approaches its note from an adjacent note of an overtone series containing that 5th, thus

in imitation of two-part writing for the natural horn”174 In other words, horn 5ths are

171 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 131. 172 Vince Guaraldi, “Linus and Lucy,” track 6 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 173 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 125. 174 Oxford Music Online, “‘Horn’ Fifths,” 2001, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.13363.

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sequences of dyads in which the one voice moves along chord tones 1, 2, 3 and 5, and the other

voice moves along chord tones 3, 5, 1, and 2. Each voice plays the same sequence of notes but

offset from the other.

At least among audiences in the U.S., I suspect that the most widely recognizable

example of horn 5ths comes from “Linus and Lucy,”175 Vince Guaraldi’s most famous

composition and the theme song to Peanuts.176 The first phrase of the melody of the A section

of this composition, shown in Ex. 4.6.1, consists simply of ascending and descending horn 5ths

that outline A♭. Toward the end of the 1964 recording, Guaraldi sequences horn 5ths into a

three-octave run, shown in Ex. 4.6.2.

Example 4.6.1: “Linus and Lucy,” A section melody.177

Example 4.6.2: “Linus and Lucy,” three-octave horn 5ths run.178

175 Vince Guaraldi, “Linus and Lucy,” track 6 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 176 This was at least my experience when I was introduced to horn 5ths in my first music theory courses. My classmates and I were quick to identify the pattern as the one from “that Charlie Brown song.” 177 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 122. 178 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 129.

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Perhaps Guaraldi was influenced by the enormous success of “Linus and Lucy” (which, of

course, was due in part to the enormous success of the Peanuts franchise), since afterwards,

Guaraldi adopted horn 5ths into his personal idiom. I have not encountered any examples of

Guaraldi playing horn 5ths before 1963, but several were recorded after that date. Most occur,

as in “Linus and Lucy,” over an A♭ tonality (on the piano, horn 5ths fit nicely under the hand in

this key). Ex. 4.6.3 shows Guaraldi playing horn 5ths over A♭Maj7 during his solo on

“Greensleeves”179 from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Example 4.6.3: “Greensleeves,” horn 5ths during Guaraldi’s solo.180

Ex. 4.6.4 shows Guaraldi playing the same pattern over A♭7 on a recording of “Autumn

Leaves” 181 released as part of the 2009 compilation album The Definitive Vince Guaraldi.

Example 4.6.4: “Autumn Leaves,” horn 5ths during Guaraldi’s solo.182

179 Vince Guaraldi, “Greensleeves” (aka “What Child Is This”), track 12 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 180 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 49. 181 Vince Guaraldi, “Autumn Leaves,” track 16 on disc 2 of The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, recorded October 26, 1964. 182 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 7.

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Guaraldi frequently extends the horn 5ths sequence at the peak of the phrase by

moving the top voice up a half step to the 4th of the chord. This variation on horn 5ths is highly

characteristic of the Guaraldi sound—maybe as much as his signature minor-3rd double stop

(see section 4.4). It combines several elements of Guaraldi’s idiomatic style into a single device:

horn 5ths, dyads, double stops, and a peak 4th phrase.

After the last statement of the head on “Greensleeves,”183 Guaraldi plays this variation

several times in succession. Ex. 4.6.5 shows two such times, over D♭Maj, then B♭Maj. In the

following measure, over CMaj, Guaraldi varies the pattern slightly.

Example 4.6.5: “Greensleeves,” horn 5ths with peak 4th during outro.184

Guaraldi plays a similar shape while interpreting the melody of “Newport Theme.”185 In

this instance, Guaraldi modifies the last dyad of the horn 5ths sequence by altering the bottom

voice to better imply the harmonic change from A♭ to D7; instead of C, Guaraldi plays F♯. One

such segment is shown in Ex. 4.6.6.

183 Vince Guaraldi, “Greensleeves” (aka “What Child Is This”), track 12 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 184 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 54. 185 Vince Guaraldi, “Newport Theme,” track 8 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. A complete transcription is included in Appendix A.

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Example 4.6.6: “Newport Theme,” modified horn 5ths with peak 4th.

Finally, Ex. 4.6.7 shows a segment of Guaraldi’s solo on a recording of “Cast Your Fate to

the Wind” from February 2, 1974.186 Guaraldi plays two phrases of horn 5ths sequentially. The

first is a prototypical example over A♭ major. The second is over E♭7, and Guaraldi adds the 4th

at the peak of the phrase.

Example 4.6.7: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” two horn 5ths phrases, one with a peak 4th.

4.7 The “Gone But Not Forgotten” Lick

Jerry Coker identifies the opening melody of the song “Gone But Not Forgotten,” shown

in Ex. 4.7.1, as a common phrase within the jazz dialect, appropriately dubbing it the “Gone But

Not Forgotten” lick.187 Coker notes that the phrase can fit over chords of several qualities, but

in its original context, it is played over a minor chord. Its characteristic feature is the leading

tone that helps to tonicize the minor chord.

186 Vince Guaraldi, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” track 8 on Live on The Air, recorded February 6, 1974, D&D VG1120, 2008. 187 Jerry Coker, “’Gone But Not Forgotten’ Lick,” in Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improviser (Alfred, 1991), 77-79.

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Example 4.7.1: Prototype “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick.188

Ex. 4.7.2 shows Guaraldi playing the “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick during his solo on

“Moon River.”189 Although the lick outlines Cm, Guaraldi plays it over Dø7. This is another

instance of harmonic generalization: the melody derives from the parent key rather than from a

specific chord.190 In this case, Guaraldi anticipates the tonic Cm resolution two measures ahead.

Example 4.7.2: “Moon River,” “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick during Guaraldi’s solo.191

Guaraldi rarely plays the “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick exactly as shown in Ex. 4.7.1.

Instead, he plays it in fragments, within longer phrases, or altered to fit other harmonies. For

example, he often plays it over a major chord, accommodating the harmony by raising the first

two notes of the lick up a half step. One such instance can be heard on his December 4, 1962,

recording of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Outra Vez.”192 During a segment of his solo, shown in

Ex. 4.7.3, Guaraldi plays the “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick, but he raises the first two notes

from D and E♭ to D♯ and E, respectively. This allows the lick to better fit in the key of C major.

188 Reproduced from Jerry Coker, Elements of the Jazz Language, 77. 189 Vince Guaraldi, “Moon River,” track 6 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 190 Coker offers a slightly broader definition: “Harmonic generalization occurs when an improviser chooses one scale to accommodate two or more chords of a progression.” 191 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 139. 192 Vince Guaraldi, “Outra Vez,” track 6 on In Person, recorded December 4, 1962, Fantasy 3352, June 10, 1963.

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As in Ex. 4.7.2, this is an instance of harmonic generalization, since, although the underlying

chord is G7, the lick outlines CMaj, which is both the next chord in and the key of the piece.

Example 4.7.3: “Outra Vez,” major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick.193

A few measures into his solo on “Skating,”194 Guaraldi plays this same figure, repeated

several times in succession. Once again, the lick outlines C major—the key of the piece—even

as the underlying chords vary. This segment of Guaraldi’s solo on “Skating” is shown in Ex. 4.7.4.

Example 4.7.4: “Skating,” major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick, several times.195

Two final examples show Guaraldi playing the major chord variation of the “Gone But

Not Forgotten” lick in different keys. Ex. 4.7.5 shows Guaraldi playing it while resolving from

Gm7 to FMaj7 during his solo on “Samba de Orpheus,”196 and Ex. 4.7.6 shows three instances of

Guaraldi playing it over B♭Maj on “Greensleeves.”197

193 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 59. 194 Vince Guaraldi, “Skating,” track 7 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 195 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 179. 196 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus,” track 1 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 197 Vince Guaraldi, “Greensleeves” (aka “What Child Is This”), track 12 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965.

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Example 4.7.5: “Samba de Orpheus,” major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick.198

Example 4.7.6: “Greensleeves,” three instances of major chord variant of “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick.199

4.8 Descending Enclosures

Even when Guaraldi does not play the “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick specifically, he uses

its general shape to great effect. In fact, the “Gone But Not Forgotten” lick is best understood

as a special case of an enclosure: a melodic device in which a target note is preceded by its two

neighbor tones—the notes above and below it.200 In the examples above, the “Gone But Not

Forgotten” lick targets the root of the (implied) chord, enclosing it between the note one half-

step below and one whole-step above.

198 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 167. An error in the original is corrected here: the E on beat 2 of m. 1 is inaccurately transcribed as C in the book. 199 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 50-51. 200 Coker offers a narrower definition in Elements of the Jazz Language, using the term “enclosure” only to describe instances in which a target note is approached by neighbor tones a half-step away. Guaraldi, however, often plays enclosure shapes with neighbor tones a whole step away from the object note. Therefore, for this paper, I allow the term “enclosure” to encompass phrases with both half-step and whole-step neighbor tones.

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A common Guaraldi idiom involves playing a descending sequence of enclosures—or

enclosure-like patterns—that outline chord tones.201 These sequences usually occur within

longer phrases and include two or three enclosures. A clear example of this idiom can be heard

during the opening measures of Guaraldi’s second chorus on “Charlie Brown Theme.”202

Guaraldi plays a sixteenth-note line that begins with a scalar ascent to B. Then he plays a

sequence of three enclosures targeting D, B, then G. This is shown in shown in Ex. 4.8.1.

Example 4.8.1: “Charlie Brown Theme,” descending enclosures.203

Guaraldi begins his solo on “Greensleeves”204 similarly: with an ascending scalar passage

followed by a sequence of descending enclosures, as shown in Ex. 4.8.2. In this case, the

enclosures target F, E♭, then C over a ii-V-I progression in E♭ major. Note that, although the

chord symbol and left-hand voicing indicate an altered B♭7 harmony, the target notes of the

enclosures more strongly imply Fm7. This is another example of harmonic generalization.

Guaraldi follows the enclosures with a peak 4th phrase (see section 4.5) resolving to E♭.

201 George Winston, in our conversations, called this pattern “weaving.” 202 Vince Guaraldi, “Charlie Brown Theme,” track 5 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 203 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 31. 204 Vince Guaraldi, “Greensleeves” (aka “What Child Is This”), track 12 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965.

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Example 4.8.2: “Greensleeves,” descending enclosures.205

In a segment of his solo on “Autumn Leaves,”206 shown in Ex. 4.8.3, Guaraldi sequences

enclosures around F, E♭, then C. He follows this with an idiomatic 3-♭9 lick.

Example 4.8.3: “Autumn Leaves,” descending enclosures.207

Ex. 4.8.4 shows a descending enclosure phrase Guaraldi played during his solo on

“Theme to Grace,” 208 from The Grace Cathedral Concert. Here Guaraldi plays six enclosures,

targeting E♭, C, B♭, A♭, F, then C♯. In this sequence, all but the first two target notes are

separated by three sixteenth notes: the two neighbor tones and one additional note below

them. The final target note (C♯) is best understood not as a chord tone but as a half-step

approach to the following four-note arpeggio.

205 Reproduced from The Vince Guaraldi Collection, 47. 206 Vince Guaraldi, “Autumn Leaves,” track 16 on disc 2 of The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, recorded October 26, 1964. 207 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 6. 208 Vince Guaraldi, “Theme to Grace,” track 6 on The Grace Cathedral Concert, recorded May 21, 1965.

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Example 4.8.4: “Theme to Grace,” descending enclosures.209

Preceding the B♭ target note on beat 1 of m. 2 of Ex. 4.8.4 is an arpeggio of an FMaj

triad where the top note (C) is an upper neighbor tone that resolves down by step. Guaraldi

regularly includes this kind of triad arpeggio within his descending enclosure phrases. One such

phrase is worth highlighting here since Guaraldi plays it so often. It begins with a peak 4th

phrase, encloses the root using a preceding triad arpeggio, then encloses the 5th with

chromatic neighbor tones. Guaraldi seems to exclusively play it in the key of F major,210 and,

like many of his stock idioms, he often played it very quickly. Ex. 4.8.5 shows Guaraldi’s first

solo break on “El Matador,”211 in which he plays this phrase during a flurry of sixteenth notes.

Example 4.8.5: “El Matador,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major.212

Guaraldi’s solo on “Jitterbug Waltz”213 contains two additional clear (and nearly

identical) examples. In Ex. 4.8.6, from near the beginning of his solo, the second note Guaraldi

209 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 212. 210 Every example I cataloged during my research occurred in the key of F major or over an FMaj chord. Of course, an occurrence in a different key may have escaped my notice. 211 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “El Matador,” track 6 on Vince & Bola, recorded April or May 1965, Fantasy FCD-24756-2, 2000. 212 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 76. 213 Vince Guaraldi, “Jitterbug Waltz,” track 5 on In Person, recorded December 4, 1962.

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plays is A♭, likely anticipating the B♭7 chord in the next measure. In Ex. 4.8.7, from near the end

of his solo, he plays A♮. Ex. 4.8.8 shows Guaraldi playing the same phrase during his solo on

“Girl from Ipanema.”214 The final enclosure of this phrase targets A, which begins a four-note

arpeggio.

Example 4.8.6: “Jitterbug Waltz,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major.215

Example 4.8.7: “Jitterbug Waltz,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major.216

Example 4.8.8: “Girl from Ipanema,” peak 4th descending enclosure phrase in F major.217

214 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “Girl from Ipanema,” track 4 on From All Sides, recorded mid-January 1965, Fantasy 3362, February 1965. 215 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 114. 216 Ibid., 118. 217 Ibid., 90.

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4.9 Red Garland Block Chords

Both in arrangements and during his solos, Guaraldi often used a locked-hands block

chord technique associated with William “Red” Garland. His right hand played a melody in

octaves, often adding an extra note a 4th or 5th between them; his left hand homophonically

played close-position chords in the middle register of the piano. Many pianists use this block

chord texture. Indeed, Garland’s influence was widespread enough that Red Garland voicings

have become part of the common jazz dialect. Ethan Iverson, in a blog post titled “Red’s Bells,”

discusses Garland’s signature voicings. He writes, “Red Garland was famous for his block

chords. The right hand of Red’s block chords are usually a repetitive structure, an octave with a

fifth in between.” Iverson provides several examples of Garland playing his iconic block chords

and observes that “To some, this harmonization lacks sophistication. Certainly the effect is

unorthodox, with obviously ‘incorrect’ pitches on top. However, Red’s left hand always

accurately makes the changes — usually seventh and sixth chords, unmistakable as tension and

release — thus ensuring that the essential harmonic function is never impaired.” 218

A clear example of Guaraldi’s use of block chords can be found in his 1964 recording of

“Blues for Peanuts,”219 first released in 2009 as part of the posthumous compilation album The

Definitive Vince Guaraldi. This 12-bar blues has no discernible head, likely because it was

recorded for a soundtrack and intended to be background music.220 For his first four choruses,

Guaraldi plays the familiar texture of tuneful, monophonic lines in his right hand supported by

218 Ethan Iverson, “Red’s Bells,” Do the M@th (blog), May 3, 2016, https://ethaniverson.com/reds-bells/. 219 Vince Guaraldi, “Blues for Peanuts,” track 17 on disc 2 of The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, recorded October 26, 1964. 220 It was recorded for a never-televised 1963 documentary by Lee Mendelson entitled A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Other recordings from this same session were released in 1964 on the album Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown (later reissued as simply A Boy Named Charlie Brown).

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three- and four-note voicings in his left. For his fifth chorus, shown in Ex. 4.9.1, he plays Red

Garland block chords that provide a marked contrast from the preceding, comparatively gentle

texture.

Example 4.9.1: “Blues for Peanuts,” Red Garland voicings.221

While Guaraldi’s block chords generally follow the template established by Garland,

there are exceptions. The middle voice of Garland’s right hand was usually a strict perfect

interval; this sometimes created against the sounding harmony the bell-like dissonance to

which Iverson referred. Guaraldi’s right hand, by contrast, was not so strict. As Ex. 4.9.1 shows,

the middle voice was frequently diatonic to the key or absent altogether. And occasionally,

Guaraldi played more than three notes in his right hand, filling in the space between the

221 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 15.

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octaves that constitute his melodic lines. This technique, too, is not uncommon among jazz

pianists; Guaraldi may have adopted it from Oscar Peterson, who used it frequently.222 Ex. 4.9.2

shows a segment of 1962’s “Manhã de Carnaval”223 during which Guaraldi plays Garland

voicings using a mix of two, three, and four notes at once in his right hand.

Example 4.9.2: “Manhã de Carnaval,” Red Garland voicings.224

In addition to playing Garland voicings during improvisations, Guaraldi also played them

during composed shout choruses—energetic sections written into arrangements with rhythmic

figures played by the entire band. Ex. 4.9.3 shows Guaraldi playing Garland voicings for the

shout chorus of “Samba de Orpheus.”225 He plays this section twice. After each, the band brings

the dynamics down considerably, creating a contrast akin to that noted in “Blues for Peanuts,”

above. We can be certain that this shout chorus was part of the planned arrangement for two

reasons. First, Guaraldi plays this same shout chorus in an alternate take (the “single version”)

222 An example of Oscar Peterson playing this kind of block chord with four notes in the right hand can be heard on Oscar Peterson, “Just in Time,” track 7 on A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra, recorded May 18, 1959, Verve, 1959. 223 Vince Guaraldi, “Manhã de Carnaval,” track 2 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 224 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 63. 225 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus,” track 1 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962.

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from the same session.226 Second, in a performance recreated for the 1964 documentary

Anatomy of a Hit, Guaraldi can be seen signaling—with raised eyebrows and a subtle head nod

to his band—the start of the shout chorus.227

Example 4.9.3: “Samba de Orpheus,” Red Garland voicings.228

An even earlier example of Guaraldi playing Garland voicings can be heard on a track

from his first recording session, suggesting that Garland voicings have been part of his repertory

since the very beginning of his recording career. On “Three Little Words,”229 recorded in 1951

as part of the Cal Tjader Trio, Guaraldi plays Garland voicings during a composed shout chorus.

This segment is shown in Ex. 4.9.4. Incidentally, this track was recorded several years before

Red Garland’s 1956 debut album230 and a couple years before Garland’s first appearance on

recordings.231 This suggests that Guaraldi may not have initially learned this block chord

226 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus – Single Version,” track 9 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus [Original Jazz Classics Remasters] (OJC Remaster), recorded February 1962. 227 Moore, Anatomy of a Hit, 3:55. 228 This example corrects an inaccurate portion of the transcription published in The Definitive Vince Guaraldi. 229 Cal Tjader, “Three Little Words,” track 3 on The Cal Tjader Trio, recorded November 1951. 230 Red Garland, A Garland of Red, recorded August 17, 1956, Prestige LP7064, 1957. 231 Charlie Parker, At Storyville, recorded March 10 and September 22, 1953, Blue Note CDP 85108, 1985. Garland was present only on the March 10 session.

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technique by listening to Garland; instead, I suspect that he and Garland both pulled from a

common, developing jazz piano dialect. Garland’s name has become associated with these

kinds of block chords due to the frequency with which he played them and his mastery of the

technique.

Example 4.9.4: “Three Little Words,” Red Garland voicings.

4.10 Left-Hand Voicings

Guaraldi’s left hand typically follows the dialectal practices of bebop and post-bebop

jazz piano. While his right hand plays quick monophonic passages, his left hand plays two-to-

three-note chords as rhythmic punctuation. This practice was developed by the early

innovators of bebop piano (perhaps none more so than Bud Powell), and it differs from that of

earlier styles of jazz piano (like ragtime and stride) in which the pianist’s left hand played a

more consistent, quarter-note-based accompaniment. Ted Gioia describes the approach of

bebop pianists in his book The History of Jazz:

This new style, as it developed, came to emphasize the right hand, which played fast melody lines laced with all the chromatic color tones and rhythmic flurries found in a Parker alto solo. The left hand supported this linear approach with supple comping

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chords—often simple structures built with only two or three notes—that were almost as important for their rhythmic kick as for their meager harmonic implications.232

Early in his career especially, Guaraldi almost entirely neglected his left hand in favor of

his right. Guaraldi plays in his left hand single notes, perfect 5th dyads, and, occasionally,

nothing at all. Ex. 4.10.1 shows a segment of Guaraldi’s solo on “Fenwyck’s Farfel”233 in which

Guaraldi plays only single notes in his left hand—the 5th of the chord. What the transcription

does not make clear is the extent to which the left hand is deemphasized. The written left-hand

notes are barely audible. It is easy to imagine that, for the young Guaraldi, the left hand was an

afterthought used mostly for rhythmic punctuation and decoration of the lines played in his

right hand.

Example 4.10.1: “Fenwyck’s Farfel,” eight measures of Guaraldi’s solo with sparse left hand.234

This minimalist approach to left-hand accompaniment was particularly well suited for

playing with guitarists. Omitting chordal accompaniment on the piano left sonic space for

chords played on guitar, and Guaraldi often played with guitarists. His first two albums featured

232 Ted Gioia, The History of Jazz, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 216-217. 233 Vince Guaraldi, “Fenwyck’s Farfel,” track 2 on Vince Guaraldi Trio, recorded April 1956. 234 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 86-87.

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a trio without drums—only himself, Dean Reilly on bass, and Eddie Duran on guitar. Guaraldi

played with Duran on and off throughout his career. They recorded together as early as 1955

and as late as 1969.235 And for several years in the mid-1960s, Guaraldi co-led a popular bossa

nova-influenced quartet with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete.

A clear example of Guaraldi’s minimalist left hand can be heard on “Newport Theme.”236

Throughout the piece, including during his solo, Guaraldi often plays only the root of the chord

in his left hand, doubling the notes played by bassist Kelly Bryan. Chordal accompaniment is

instead provided by Duran on guitar. Ex. 4.10.2 shows the first few measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

Example 4.10.2: “Newport Theme,” sparse left hand, roots only.

A special case of two-note left-hand voicings involves playing just the root of the chord

and, above it, either the 3rd or 7th.237 These voicings were used so frequently by Bud Powell

that Mark Levine, in The Jazz Piano Book, calls them Bud Powell voicings.238 Vince Guaraldi

played Bud Powell voicings occasionally, often interspersed among the above-discussed single

235 Precise recording dates are not always readily available for some of Guaraldi’s recordings. Thus, it is likely that Guaraldi and Duran played together before 1955 and after 1969. But Duran at least verifiably appears on the 1955 recordings released on Modern Music from San Francisco and on 1969’s Alma-Ville. 236 Vince Guaraldi, “Newport Theme,” track 8 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. A complete transcription is included in Appendix A. 237 A three-note variation also played frequently by Bud Powell includes, from bottom to top, the root, the 5th, and the 7th. 238 Mark Levine, The Jazz Piano Book (Petaluma, CA: Sher Music Co, 1989), 162.

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notes and dyads. Ex. 4.10.3 shows Guaraldi playing Bud Powell voicings in his left hand during a

segment of “Ginza Samba,”239 accompanied by Bola Sete.

Example 4.10.3: “Ginza Samba,” Bud Powell voicings.240

As time progressed, and especially when playing without a guitarist, Guaraldi’s left-hand

voicings tended to become thicker, employing three and four notes. Mark Levine describes this

as a general trend, noting that “most of the jazz pianists who emerged in the 1960s played the

[four-note rootless] left-hand voicings Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly developed, and the use of

Bud Powell voicings declined.”241 The prevalence of Guaraldi’s left hand within the overall

texture also increased, his accompaniment providing a constant rhythmic and harmonic

backdrop against which he improvised lines with his right hand. By the time he recorded Jazz

Impressions of Black Orpheus, Guaraldi played these thicker voicings more often than not.

A clear example of this more developed, rhythmically active left-hand texture can be

found in his recording of “Samba de Orpheus.”242 Throughout both the head and his solo,

239 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “Ginza Samba,” track 3 on From All Sides, recorded mid-January 1965. 240 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 100. 241 Mark Levine, The Jazz Piano Book, 162. 242 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus,” track 1 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962.

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Guaraldi plays three- and four-note left-hand voicings on upbeats, emphasizing the “and” of

beats 3 and 4. This pattern, I think, contributes significantly to the lighthearted yet propulsive

swing groove that characterizes both this recording in particular and the Guaraldi sound

generally. Ex. 4.10.4 shows eight measures of the head of “Samba de Orpheus,” during which

Guaraldi plays this left-hand texture with (mostly) three- and four-note voicings.

Example 4.10.4: “Samba de Orpheus,” three- and four-note left-hand voicings.243

A much later example of Guaraldi playing four-note voicings comes from his 1974

recording of “Woodstock’s Pad.”244 Ex. 4.10.5 shows Guaraldi playing four-note rootless

voicings, alternating between FMaj9 and E♭6.

Example 4.10.5: “Woodstock’s Pad,” four-note left-hand voicings.

243 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 160. 244 Vince Guaraldi, “Woodstock’s Pad,” track 7 on Live On The Air, recorded February 6, 1974. This track is incorrectly titled “Then Came You” on the album. A full transcription of this recording is attached as Appendix C.

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Two specific left-hand voicings, shown in Ex. 4.10.6, deserve special mention here, since

pianist George Winston, in his own comprehensive studies of Guaraldi’s playing, identified

them as important to the Guaraldi sound. Winston, who has released two albums dedicated to

Guaraldi’s music245 (and who tells me others are forthcoming), has become an expert on the

subject.246 He offers commentary throughout The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, performed during

the American Eagle award ceremony in honor of the late composer, and once performed as

Guaraldi’s opening act.247 “He had a great way of voicing D half-diminished seven to G seven

augmented fifth,” Winston recounts in Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi. “He loved [the G7♭13]

voicing in particular. It’s very personal to him.”248

Example 4.10.6: Two common voicings for iiø7-V7♭13.

Three examples below show Guaraldi playing these voicings on recordings. The first,

Ex. 4.10.7, shows Guaraldi playing a ii-V-i in Cm on “The Great Pumpkin Waltz.”249 The second,

Ex. 4.10.8, shows him playing the same leading into his solo on “Rain, Rain Go Away.”250 Finally,

Ex. 4.10.9 shows Guaraldi playing the two voicings in a different key: over Eø7 and A7♭13 on

245 Linus and Lucy—The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 1, Dancing Cat Records, 1996; and Love Will Come—The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Volume 2, Dancing Cat Records, 2010. 246 As Winston recounted to me by email, Vince Guaraldi is one of “three composers that I have at one time or another tried to play all of their songs [. . .] about 60 pieces overall. Vince Guaraldi and his music are so much a part of the deep heart and soul of San Francisco, as well as American culture, and of the experiences of childhood.” 247 George Winston, personal correspondence with author, August 23, 2020. 248 Thomas and Gleason, Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, 10:15. 249 Vince Guaraldi, “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” track 4 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968, Warner Bros. WS 1747-2, 1968. 250 Vince Guaraldi, “Rain, Rain Go Away,” track 8 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968.

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“Theme to Grace.”251 In the second measure of Ex. 4.10.9, Guaraldi plays four Bud Powell

voicings in his left hand; the first three are a common variant consisting of (from bottom to top)

the root, 5th, and 7th of the chord.

Example 4.10.7: “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” two common left-hand voicings.

Example 4.10.8: “Rain, Rain Go Away,” two common left-hand voicings.

Example 4.10.9: “Theme to Grace,” two common left-hand voicings.252

251 Vince Guaraldi, “Theme to Grace,” track 6 on The Grace Cathedral Concert, recorded May 21, 1965. 252 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 210.

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ELEMENTS OF GUARALDI’S COMPOSITIONS

5.1 Left-Hand Bass

When Guaraldi did not accompany himself with chords, it is often because he instead

played bass lines. This represents one of the clearest ways in which Guaraldi was influenced by

boogie-woogie. Ostinato bass figures feature prominently in his compositions, and he

frequently played them on the piano with his left hand. Some of these bass lines closely

resemble the kind that typify boogie-woogie. Consider, for example, the opening measures of

Meade Lux Lewis’s “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” which was first recorded in 1927 and is

remembered today as among the most iconic boogie-woogie recordings.253 Ex. 5.1.1 shows

mm. 2-5 of a recording from 1936.254 Two important characteristics of boogie-woogie can be

seen even in this short excerpt. The first is the idiomatic blues language played by the right

hand involving dyads and double stops (discussed in section 4.3). The second is the rhythmic

left-hand figure that persists throughout the composition and establishes the groove.

Example 5.1.1: “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” mm. 2-5.

253 Martin Williams, “Lewis, Meade (Anderson) ‘Lux,’” revised by Barry Kernfeld, Oxford Music Online, 2001, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.16536. 254 Meade “Lux” Lewis, “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” recorded May 7, 1936, RCA Victor 25541, 1937.

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Guaraldi, whose earliest experiences on the piano involved boogie-woogie, must have

been familiar with Lewis’s composition. He plays a similar left-hand pattern during a segment of

“Play It Again, Charlie Brown,”255 shown in Ex. 5.1.2.

Example 5.1.2: “Play It Again, Charlie Brown,” boogie-woogie left-hand bass pattern.

But more often, Guaraldi’s left-hand bass patterns deviate from those that were

standard in boogie-woogie. They occur on compositions that are not clearly blues-influenced,

and he often does not play the figure throughout the entire piece; instead, the composed bass

lines may only occur on specific parts of the form. In many cases, these bass lines are just as

memorable and vital to the composition as the melody. Even many who have never heard Vince

Guaraldi’s name will instantly recognize the opening ostinato of “Linus and Lucy,”256 shown in

Ex. 5.1.3.

Example 5.1.3: “Linus and Lucy,” bass line during A sections.257

255 Vince Guaraldi, “Play It Again, Charlie Brown” (aka “Charlie Brown Blues”), track 2 on Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown TV Specials, recording date unknown, D&D VG1118, 2007. 256 Vince Guaraldi, “Linus and Lucy,” track 6 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 257 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 122.

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His most famous pre-Peanuts composition, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,”258 also begins

with an iconic bass line, shown in Ex. 5.1.4. Audiences familiar with Guaraldi applauded when

they recognized it during live performances.259 As in “Linus and Lucy,” Guaraldi plays a

composed bass line only during the head and switches to chordal accompaniment during his

solo.

Example 5.1.4: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” opening bass line.

Even when a bass line is not a primary melodic feature of a piece, Guaraldi sometimes

nevertheless plays one. These bass lines are often played in unison with what his bassist plays,

but they also occasionally seem to conflict by occupying the same register but with different

notes. Ex. 5.1.5 shows the first few measures of the A section of “Alma-Ville,”260 in which

Guaraldi plays a bass line throughout the composed head.

258 Vince Guaraldi, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” track 5 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 259 Applause can be heard moments after Guaraldi begins playing “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” on the recording from Live on the Air, recorded February 6, 1974, D&D VG1120; also in a clip in Anatomy of a Hit, “Program III: Little Man, What Now?” 1:03:25. 260 Vince Guaraldi, “Alma-Ville,” track 7 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962.

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Example 5.1.5: “Alma-Ville,” first seven measures of A section.

On “Skating,”261 Guaraldi plays bass notes during his solo that differ from what the

bassist simultaneously plays. This is a strategy that contrasts markedly from that of most other

modern jazz pianists, who often deliberately avoid playing bass lines to offer bassists more

freedom to improvise. Ex. 5.1.6 shows a segment of Guaraldi’s solo on “Skating.”

Example 5.1.6: “Skating,” eight measures of Guaraldi’s solo.262

Guaraldi was especially likely to play left-hand bass lines over static harmonies and

repeating four-chord progressions. Such vamps reflect two other salient influences from

261 Vince Guaraldi, “Skating,” track 7 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 262 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 180.

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Guaraldi’s career: the montuno grooves of Afro-Caribbean music and the jam band rock music

of the 1960s and ‘70s.

5.2 Montunos and the I-IV-V-IV Progression

Afro-Cuban dance music263 often features two distinct and contrasting grooves. The first

is comparatively calmer and uses a long-form chord progression that can be unique to the

composition. This is followed by the higher energy mambo section,264 which typically involves

an extended vamp over a short, repeating chord progression, often no more than four

measures long. Over this progression, a pianist will often play a montuno,265 a repeating

rhythmic ostinato that outlines the chord progression and reinforces the groove.

Guaraldi played montunos in Cal Tjader’s band. The earliest such recordings can be

heard on Live at Club Macumba San Francisco 1956. Ex. 5.2.1 shows the montuno Guaraldi

played to begin the mambo section of Dizzy Gillespie’s composition “Guarachi Guaro.” 266 The

montuno outlines two triads a whole step apart. Typical of many montunos, this pattern uses

only the three notes of each triad; Guaraldi does not play 7ths.

Example 5.2.1: “Guarachi Guaro,” montuno.

263 Alternatively called Cuban, Afro-Caribbean, or even (somewhat generically) “salsa” music. 264 Alternatively called the montuno section, and maybe other names as well. Nomenclature differs by region and style. 265 Alternatively called a tumbao. Again, nomenclature differs. 266 The Cal Tjader Quintet, “Guarachi Guaro,” track 2 on Live at Club Macumba San Francisco 1956, recorded September 3-16 or October 2-18, 1956, Acrobat Jazz ADDCD3084, December 11, 2012.

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Guaraldi’s experience playing Afro-Cuban piano with Cal Tjader influenced his

compositions in several ways. Perhaps most obviously, they occasionally include montuno-like

patterns. For example, the montuno Guaraldi played on “Guarachi Guaro” is strikingly similar to

the left-hand bass pattern that opens “El Matador,”267 shown in Ex. 5.2.2. The rhythm of the

notes is nearly identical, and although the harmonic rhythm of the latter montuno is slower, it

also outlines two triads a whole step apart.

Example 5.2.2: “El Matador,” left-hand montuno pattern.268

“Alma-Ville”269 is one of several compositions that exemplify the way Guaraldi blended

his jazz and “Latin” influences. Ex. 5.2.3 shows its introduction, which resembles a montuno: it

repeats, outlines a short chord progression, and is rhythmically active in a way that establishes

a groove. The introduction segues into the first A section with chords played in a rhythm that

Guaraldi likely learned from the cha-cha-chá. Rebeca Mauleón, in The Salsa Guidebook,

identifies the rhythm as one of the two dominant piano patterns for cha-cha-chá.270

Example 5.2.3: “Alma-Ville,” intro featuring montuno and cha-cha-chá rhythm.

267 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “El Matador,” track 6 on Vince & Bola, recorded April or May 1965. 268 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 74. 269 Vince Guaraldi, “Alma-Ville,” track 7 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 270 Rebeca Mauleón, Salsa Guidebook for Piano & Ensemble (Petaluma, CA: Sher Music Co., 1993), 204.

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Guaraldi used the cha-cha-chá pattern again in the introduction to “Treat Street.”271

Here, the harmony outlines a ii-V progression, which is common for mambo sections of cha-

cha-chás.272 The opening measures of “Treat Street” are shown in Ex. 5.2.4.

Example 5.2.4: “Treat Street,” introductory cha-cha-chá vamp.

Ex. 4.3.1, above, shows the following few measures of “Treat Street.” This piece is an

excellent example of Guaraldi’s signature blending of jazz and Afro-Cuban influences. Guaraldi

plays bluesy dyads in his right hand over a chord progression that is common to mambo

sections of many Afro-Cuban compositions: I-IV-V-IV.273 Ex. 5.2.5 shows the first few measures

of Guaraldi’s solo on “Treat Street.”

Example 5.2.5: “Treat Street,” first measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

This I-IV-V-IV progression is something Guaraldi must have been quite familiar with

since it and related progressions occur frequently within his compositions. Compare the head of

271 Vince Guaraldi, “Treat Street,” track 5 on The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, recorded Summer 1963. 272 A famous example is Tito Puente, “Oye Como Va,” track 2 on El Rey Bravo, recorded 1962, Tico Records SLP 1086, 1962. 273 I suspect the example most familiar to American readers might be the Mexican folk song “La Bamba.”

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“Treat Street,” for example, with that of “Detained in San Ysidro,”274 which is comprised nearly

entirely of a I-IV-V-IV progression and also features a melody with bluesy dyads. The first few

measures of the head of “Detained in San Ysidro” are shown in Ex. 5.2.6 (and the first few

measures of Guaraldi’s solo are shown in Ex. 4.3.5, above).

Example 5.2.6: “Detained in San Ysidro,” first measures of A section.

Many of Guaraldi’s compositions use a form more common to Afro-Cuban music than to

jazz (or bossa nova, for that matter). Although they begin and end with a statement of the

head, the middle section over which Guaraldi improvises repeats a short chord progression like

those found in mambo sections. The middle portion of “Christmas Is Coming,”275 for example, is

a repeating I-IV-V-IV progression that contrasts with the head that precedes and follows it.

Ex. 5.2.7 shows the first few measures of Guaraldi’s solo.

Example 5.2.7: “Christmas Is Coming,” first measures of Guaraldi’s solo.276

274 Vince Guaraldi, “Detained in San Ysidro,” track 3 on Alma-Ville, recorded October 10, 1969. 275 Vince Guaraldi, “Christmas Is Coming,” track 9 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 276 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 44.

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Guaraldi does the same thing on “Skating”277 but in 3/4 time. The solo section simply

repeats a I-IV-V-IV progression. In this case, however, the solo progression is foreshadowed by

its occurrence in both the introduction and the head. In the introduction, the progression is

realized with major 6/9 chords. In the head, Guaraldi plays only open-position triads with his

left hand. Ex. 5.2.8 shows the introduction and the first few measures of the A section of

“Skating.”

Example 5.2.8: “Skating,” intro vamp into first measures of A section.278

Finally, on “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,”279 Guaraldi begins the solo section by vamping

a I-IV-V-IV progression, as shown in Ex. 5.2.9. He then proceeds to solo over an even simpler I-V

progression. Both differ significantly from the chord progression that accompanies the

preceding and following melody.

277 Vince Guaraldi, “Skating,” track 7 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 278 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 176. 279 Vince Guaraldi, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” track 5 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962.

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Example 5.2.9: “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” I-IV-V-IV progression leading into solos.280

On several other compositions, Guaraldi uses four-chord progressions reminiscent of

those in the preceding examples, but which are not strictly I-IV-V-IV. “The Masked Marvel” is in

a minor key, so the qualities of the chords differ: the progression Guaraldi solos over is

i-IV7-V7-i.281 The first part of the A section of “Peppermint Patty,”282 shown in Ex. 5.2.10,

resembles a montuno in its repetition, four-chord structure, and two-measure length. It uses a

VII chord instead of a V, so the progression becomes I-IV-VII-IV. The second half of the A section

uses a tritone walkdown, a progression discussed in more detail in section 5.4.

Example 5.2.10: “Peppermint Patty,” first measures of A section.

5.3 Triads

“He’s the only jazz pianist I’ve ever known of that used straight major chords as well as

jazz chords,” George Winston comments in Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi.283 Indeed, several

280 This example corrects an inaccurate portion of the transcription published in The Definitive Vince Guaraldi. 281 My full transcription of “The Masked Marvel” is available in Appendix B. 282 Vince Guaraldi, “Peppermint Patty,” track 9 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. 283 Thomas and Gleason, The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, 10:00.

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Guaraldi compositions employ triads instead of chords with four or more notes. Often these

occur during Afro-Cuban-inspired segments, like those discussed above; triads are not unusual

in montunos (see Ex. 5.2.1 and 5.2.2, above). But Guaraldi also used triads as the basis for

several compositions that were not obviously Afro-Cuban-inspired. For example, triads

comprise the entire B section of “Monterey,”284 shown in Ex. 5.3.1. And most of the A section of

“Thanksgiving Theme,”285 shown in Ex. 5.3.2, is composed of arpeggiated triads.

Example 5.3.1: “Monterey,” first eight measures of B section. Ossia staff shows the melody sung by the Boys Chorus.

284 Vince Guaraldi, “Monterey,” track 5 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. 285 Vince Guaraldi, “Thanksgiving Theme,” track 11 on Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits, recording date unknown, Fantasy FCD-9682-2, September 8, 1998.

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Example 5.3.2: “Thanksgiving Theme,” first eight measures.286

Guaraldi opens “Rain, Rain Go Away”287 with a rubato, Debussyesque sequence of

fluidly arpeggiated chords, alternating between a CMaj triad and E♭6. This is shown in Ex. 5.3.3.

When bass and drums enter for his solo, Guaraldi switches to playing four-note rootless

voicings in his left hand.

Example 5.3.3: “Rain, Rain Go Away,” first four measures.

“Red Baron”288 provides an example of several of Guaraldi’s idioms at once. It opens

with a boogie-woogie-inspired bass line; Guaraldi plays dyads and triads in his right hand; the

first melody consists of two peak 4th phrases; and the harmony consists mostly of triads.

Ex. 5.3.4 shows the first few measures of the head of “Red Baron.”

286 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 204. 287 Vince Guaraldi, “Rain, Rain Go Away,” track 8 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968. 288 Vince Guaraldi, “Red Baron,” track 7 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968. Misspelled “Red Barron” on the Spotify album.

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Example 5.3.4: “Red Baron,” first several measures of head.

5.4 Tritone Walkdowns

A tritone walkdown289 is a chord progression that features a bass line that begins on ♯4

and descends chromatically or via the cycle of 4ths to the tonic. This is a common progression

in jazz music and can be justifiably considered part of the jazz dialect. Indeed, jazz musicians

often play this progression spontaneously as an introduction or ending to a performance and

are expected to be able to hear it and follow along if a bandmate begins it. Yet Guaraldi used a

tritone walkdown with such frequency in his own compositions that it became a part of his

compositional idiom. George Winston identified it as Guaraldi’s “trademark descending

progression,” and observed several possible variants.290

289 Alternatively called a ♯4- or ♭5-walkdown. 290 George Winston, online liner notes to Linus and Lucy—The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 1, http://www.georgewinston.com/mediafiles/recording_records/pdf/LINUS-AND-LUCY-Website-Liner-Notes-14.pdf.

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A basic version of the tritone walkdown features prominently in Guaraldi’s holiday

classic “Christmas Time Is Here.”291 The piece follows an AABA form, and the tritone walkdown

comprises the second half of each A section (the first half uses two alternating chords, a

Guaraldism discussed in section 5.6). In this instance, it begins on a half-diminished chord, then

descends chromatically with parallel minor chords to the ii chord. From there, the bass line

moves around the cycle of 4ths, resolving to the tonic with a standard ii-V7-I progression. The

tritone walkdown comprising the second A section of “Christmas Time Is Here” is shown in

Ex. 5.4.1.

Example 5.4.1: “Christmas Time Is Here,” tritone walkdown on second half of A section.292

Guaraldi uses a nearly identical progression on “Peppermint Patty;”293 only the quality

of the A♭ chord differs. As in both the prior example and the next, the penultimate chord is a

sus chord; this better accommodates the tonic melody note. Just as in the prior example, the

tritone walkdown constitutes the second segment of each A section on this AABA tune.

Ex. 5.4.2 shows this segment of “Peppermint Patty.”

291 Vince Guaraldi, “Christmas Time Is Here,” track 5 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 292 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 50. 293 Vince Guaraldi, “Peppermint Patty,” track 9 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967.

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Example 5.4.2: “Peppermint Patty,” tritone walkdown on second half of A section.

“Christmas Is Coming”294 again uses a tritone walkdown to end each A section. The bass

notes remain mostly the same albeit in the key of E♭. They descend chromatically from ♯4 to 2,

then move up a 4th to 5. The chords, however, differ slightly. Instead of minor 7ths, the third

chord and fourth chord in the sequence (over bass notes G and G♭) are a first-inversion major

and a root-position diminished chord, respectively. This sequence is shown in Ex. 5.4.3.

Example 5.4.3: “Christmas Is Coming,” tritone walkdown on second half of A section.295

Guaraldi uses these same variations on the tritone walkdown that constitutes the B

section of “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown.”296 Instead of Cm and Bm, the third and fourth

chords of the progression are A♭/C and Bo7, respectively. This segment—the first eight

measures of the B section—is shown as a three-voice reduction in Ex. 5.4.4.

294 Vince Guaraldi, “Christmas Is Coming,” track 9 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 295 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 42. 296 Vince Guaraldi, “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown,” track 2 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968.

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Example 5.4.4: “You’re in Love, Charlie Brown,” three-voice reduction of first half of B section. Notes in parentheses are implied by the harmony but not played.

An interesting example of a tritone walkdown comes from “The Great Pumpkin

Waltz.”297 Ex. 5.4.5 shows the entire first phrase of the composition; the tritone walkdown

begins on m. 5. As in the previous examples, the bass of the tritone walkdown begins on ♯4 (F♯)

and descends chromatically to 2 (D). But the chords once again differ. The first and third chords

of the sequence (over bass notes A and G) are first-inversion major chords. The second and

fourth chords (over bass notes A♭ and G♭) are first-inversion diminished chords. Guaraldi omits

the V chord, which preserves the stepwise motion of the bass line. Indeed, the entire opening

phrase of the composition is built around a descending bassline. It begins on C and moves

mostly chromatically down the octave. The tritone walkdown is simply embedded within it.298

Example 5.4.5: “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” first A section.

297 Vince Guaraldi, “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” track 4 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968, Warner Bros. WS 1747-2, May 1968.

298 In fact, the final G7♭13 might be a missed opportunity; Guaraldi could have instead played D♭7, allowing the bass line to continue moving chromatically instead of around the cycle of 4ths.

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Guaraldi’s composition “Monterey”299 provides a similar example of a tritone walkdown

emerging from a longer chromatic bass line. In this case, the bass begins on 6 (G) then descends

stepwise to 2 (C). The tritone walkdown begins when the bass line reaches ♯4 (E♮). The first

phrase of “Monterey” is shown in Ex. 5.4.6.

Example 5.4.6: “Monterey,” first A section. Ossia staff shows the melody sung by the Boys Chorus.

5.5 “Latin” and Blended Grooves

Vince Guaraldi achieved breakout success with his album Jazz Impressions of Black

Orpheus largely due to its hit single “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” But the rest of the album is

also noteworthy for its role in establishing a vital part of the Guaraldi sound. Tracks like “Samba

de Orpheus” and “Felicidade”300 were among the first to reflect what Derrick Bang refers to as

“the breezy shuffle style that made Vince famous.”301 It is a groove that adds a bossa nova tinge

299 Vince Guaraldi, “Monterey,” track 5 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. 300 Mistitled “Generique” on some editions of the album. Also called “A Felicidade” elsewhere. 301 Bang, “Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD,” Five Cents Please.

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to straight-ahead, West-Coast-flavored jazz, but which never quite settles into a more authentic

Brazilian sound.

Of course, Guaraldi’s rhythm section deserves much of the credit for establishing this

groove. On “Samba de Orpheus,”302 for example, drummer Colin Bailey opens with a sixteenth-

note shuffle groove played with brushes on his snare drum, a pattern reminiscent of the shaker

and tamborim patterns played in samba. But he also played the hi-hat on beats 2 and 4, lending

the groove a distinct swing feeling. During the solo section, Bailey swings, and bassist Monty

Budwig plays a four-feel walking bass line. Budwig switches to a two-feel for the closing head.

Playing different grooves during the solo and the head or between sections of a piece

was hardly new, or even uncommon, during Guaraldi’s time. Yet his propensity to alternate

between and blend together both swing and “Latin” grooves strikes me as particularly

Guaraldian. A great example of a Guaraldi composition that combines grooves in these ways is

“Alma-Ville.” Although it was first recorded for Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, the 1970 re-

recording on the album Alma-Ville303 makes the piece’s Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and swing

influences especially evident.

It begins with a montuno (see Ex. 5.2.3). Bailey then enters with a distinctly Afro-Cuban

drum groove: he plays a cascara pattern304 on the bell of one of his cymbals. The piece segues

into the first A section with a pattern derived from cha-cha-chá (again, see the discussion of

Ex. 5.2.3 above). For the A sections of the head, Budwig plays a bass line derived from bossa

nova: a repeating pattern of a dotted-quarter note followed by an eighth note, emphasizing

302 Vince Guaraldi, “Samba de Orpheus,” track 1 on Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded February 1962. 303 Vince Guaraldi, “Alma-Ville,” track 6 on Alma-Ville, recorded October 10, 1969. 304 See Rebeca Mauleón, Salsa Guidebook, 76.

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beats 1 and 3 but with anticipations.305 During the B sections, Guaraldi again plays a montuno

pattern, and Bailey plays a cascara rhythm on a cymbal. This time, Budwig accompanies them

with an Afro-Cuban bass line called a tumbao.306 When the solos begin, the group abruptly

starts swinging; Budwig plays a walking bass line, and Bailey switches to the ride cymbal pattern

that characterizes much of jazz drumming.307

Many of Guaraldi’s compositions—like “Pebble Beach,”308 “Spice Island Theme,”309 and

“Star Song”310—were unambiguously bossa novas, as was much of his work with Bola Sete.

Other recordings find Guaraldi reinterpreting swing tunes with a Brazilian feel. When his

composition “Ginza” was first recorded in 1955,311 it was done in an up-tempo bebop style.

Two later recordings (one with Stan Getz and Cal Tjader in 1958312 and another with Bola Sete

in 1964 or ‘65313) are reinterpreted as sambas and appropriately retitled “Ginza Samba.”

Guaraldi recorded the Peanuts tune “Oh, Good Grief” at least twice. The first, from 1964,314 is

straight-ahead medium swing. The second, from 1968,315 is a bossa nova. Interestingly, Guaraldi

305 Compare this bass line to the one in, for example, Horace Silver, “Song for My Father,” track 1 on Song for My Father, recorded October 26, 1964, Blue Note BLP4185, January 1965. 306 Rebeca Mauleón, Salsa Guidebook, 105-111. Again, this term may differ by region and style. 307 For a thorough discussion of the jazz ride cymbal pattern, see Colleen B. Clark, “The Evolution of the Ride Cymbal Pattern from 1917-1941: An Historical and Critical Analysis” (DMA diss., University of North Texas, 2019), https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1505181. 308 Vince Guaraldi, “Pebble Beach,” track 2 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 309 Vince Guaraldi, “Spice Island Theme,” track 4 on Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus, recorded late Summer/early Autumn 1967. 310 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “Star Song,” track 3 on Vince & Bola, recorded August 1963. Also recorded as track 6 on The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi, recorded Summer 1963. 311 Vince Guaraldi Quartet, “Ginza,” track 3 on The Jazz Scene: San Francisco, recorded August 1955. 312 Stan Getz and Cal Tjader, “Ginza Samba,” track 1 on Stan Getz/Cal Tjader Sextet, recorded February 8, 1958, Fantasy 3-266, 1958. 313 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, “Ginza Samba,” track 3 on From All Sides, recorded mid-January 1965. 314 Vince Guaraldi, “Oh, Good Grief,” track 1 on A Boy Named Charlie Brown, recorded October 26, 1964. 315 Vince Guaraldi, “Oh, Good Grief,” track 6 on Oh Good Grief!, recorded March 22, 1968.

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did not write this tune; he likely heard it in the 1963 hit by The Dixiebelles, “Down at Papa

Joe’s,”316 which was recorded in an upbeat New Orleans funk/soul style.317 Guaraldi had no

reservations about recording popular music; he even rendered The Beatles’ “I’m a Loser”318 as a

bossa nova.

5.6 Two Alternating Chords

A common formula that Guaraldi used in his compositions involved beginning a piece

with two alternating chords, each lasting one or two measures. Typically, the ensuing two- or

four-measure pattern repeats once to form the first half of each A section. The second half

progresses either back into another A section or on to the B section.

The piece “Christmas Time Is Here”319 again provides a prototypical example. Each

section of this AABA form is eight measures long. The first four measures of each section consist

of two alternating chords. The A sections begin with FMaj7 and E♭7♯11, and the B sections

begin with D♭Maj7 and G♭7♯11. The last four measures of each section progress back to the

tonic (F) around the cycle of 4ths. In fact, the A sections conclude with a tritone walkdown—

another Guaraldism (see Ex. 5.4.1). The first four measures of the A section of “Christmas Time

Is Here” are shown in Ex. 5.6.1.

316 The Dixiebelles, “(Down at) Papa Joe’s,” track 1 on Down at Papa Joe’s, Sound Stage 7 SSS 15000, 1963. 317 Bang, Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, 163. 318 Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete, track 7 on Vince & Bola, recorded April or May 1965. 319 Vince Guaraldi, “Christmas Time Is Here,” track 5 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965.

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Example 5.6.1: “Christmas Time Is Here,” first four measures of A section.320

A similar formula is used for the A sections (but not the B section) of “Christmas Is

Coming.”321 The first half of each, shown in Ex. 5.6.2, begins by alternating between E♭ and A♭,

both over a pedal point of B♭. The A♭ chord only sounds for the last half of m. 2, but the two-

chord pattern remains, as in the previous example, two measures long. Also as in the previous

example, the second half of each A section comprises a tritone walkdown (see Ex. 5.4.3).

Example 5.6.2: “Christmas Is Coming,” first four measures of A section.322

On “Woodstock’s Pad,”323 Guaraldi again opens each A section with two alternating

chords: FMaj7 and E♭Maj7. In this case, each lasts two measures. They are followed by a tritone

walkdown. Ex. 5.6.3 shows the first eight measures of the A section of this recording.

320 Reproduced from The Definitive Vince Guaraldi, 50. 321 Vince Guaraldi, “Christmas Is Coming,” track 9 on A Charlie Brown Christmas, recorded September 1965. 322 Ibid., 42. 323 Vince Guaraldi, “Woodstock’s Pad,” track 7 on Live On The Air, recorded February 6, 1974. This track is incorrectly titled “Then Came You” on the album. A full transcription of this recording is attached as Appendix C.

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Example 5.6.3: “Woodstock’s Pad,” first eight measures of A section.

The earliest recorded example I have found of a Guaraldi composition that begins with

two alternating chords is his 1957 recording of “Like a Mighty Rose.”324 This is an AAB piece

where each section is eight measures long and the first four measures of each A section, shown

in Ex. 5.6.4, consist of C and B♭ alternating.

Example 5.6.4: “Like a Mighty Rose,” first four measures of A section.

5.7 Two-Chord Jams and the Influence of Rock ‘n’ Roll

The late 1960s marked a shift in Guaraldi’s use of repeating two-chord progressions.

Before 1969, the two-chord progressions in his compositions mostly occurred as described

above: at the beginning of A sections within longer forms. After this time, however, Guaraldi

324 Vince Guaraldi, “Like a Mighty Rose,” track 4 on A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, recorded April 16, 1957.

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began composing pieces that consisted of two chords only. Their simple, repeating progressions

and lack of formal structure suggest the clear influence of rock ‘n’ roll.

“Lucifer’s Lady,”325 the earliest such piece, consists only of C7♯9 and F13 played in a

rhythm that strongly resembles The Beatles’ “Drive My Car”326 (which was released only a few

years earlier in 1965). Guaraldi establishes the groove in the opening two measures, shown in

Ex. 5.7.1, and continues it throughout the entire piece.327 Although he begins and ends the

piece with the same short melody, it is nearly indistinguishable from his solo.

Example 5.7.1: “Lucifer’s Lady,” introductory two-measure piano vamp.

Recordings of Guaraldi’s other original two-chord jam compositions all conspicuously

feature electric or electronic instruments, cementing their relationship to rock ‘n’ roll. On

“You’re A Good Sport, Charlie Brown,”328 Guaraldi plays a repeating left-hand bass pattern on

the piano, shown in Ex. 5.7.2, that outlines C7 and B♭7, all the while accompanied by the static

groove of an electronic drum machine.

325 Vince Guaraldi, “Lucifer’s Lady,” track 2 on The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi, recorded Autumn and Winter 1968. 326 The Beatles, “Drive My Car,” track 1 on Rubber Soul, recorded October 12-November 11, 1965, EMI Parlophone, 1965. 327 This is clearly true for the recording on North Beach, recording date unknown, D&D VG4465, January 19, 2006. On the earlier recording, from The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi, the groove shifts slightly into a double-time feel during the middle portion. 328 Vince Guaraldi, “You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown,” track 6 on Oaxaca, recording date unknown, D&D VG1125, October 19, 2004.

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Example 5.7.2: “You’re a Good Sport, Charlie Brown,” first four measures.

“Motocross”329 is the same composition by a different name. It features Guaraldi

playing a similar bass line, shown in Ex. 5.7.3, on a synthesizer. Synthesized string sounds are

present throughout much of the recording. And a few minutes in, Guaraldi begins soloing using

first another synthesizer patch and then a Rhodes electric piano.

Example 5.7.3: “Motocross,” first four measures.

Many of Guaraldi’s later compositions, and a majority of those that include only two

chords, were composed for Peanuts soundtracks. Some of the repetitiveness of these two-

chord jams, therefore, is a product of their function. As Derrick Bang explains, tracks like

“Motocross” and “African Sleigh Ride”330 “were designed to be background instrumentals that

filled the space behind bits of silent comedy or even conversations between characters. As a

result, they can sound repetitive when removed from their visual action. ‘Motocross,’ in

particular, lingers about two minutes too long.”331

Nevertheless, Guaraldi’s use of electronic instruments on harmonically-static

compositions reflects where his interests lay in the late 1960s and ‘70s. He was adding rock

329 Vince Guaraldi, “Motocross,” track 4 on Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown TV Specials, recording date unknown. 330 Vince Guaraldi, “African Sleigh Ride,” track 7 on Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown TV Specials, recording date unknown. 331 Bang, Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD, Five Cents Please, http://www.fivecentsplease.org/dpb/vincecd.html.

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grooves where he never had before. For example, an undated332 recording of “Cast Your Fate to

the Wind”333 finds Guaraldi reimagining the solo section of his 1962 hit. Instead of breaking into

swing, the bassist and drummer shift abruptly to a straight-eighths rock feel. Guaraldi plays a

sixteenth-note pattern on a clavinet through a wah-pedal, and his (probably overdubbed) piano

comping emphasizes beats 1 and 3.

332 The liner notes for this release do not indicate a recording date; however, I asked Derrick Bang to offer an educated guess. Noting the similarity between this track and those included on The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi, Bang suggested that it was likely recorded sometime late 1968 or 1969. The presence of both a clavinet and piano part and the absence of audience noise suggests that this was not a live recording. Bang suspects that Guaraldi recorded it himself in his home. 333 Vince Guaraldi, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind (Alternate Take),” track 9 on North Beach, recording date unknown, D&D VG4465, January 19, 2006.

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THE JAZZ CANON AND GUARALDI’S LEGACY

6.1 Critical Reputation

Considering Guaraldi’s laudable contributions to jazz, and to West Coast and “Latin” jazz

in particular, how should his tepid recognition among contemporary jazz scholars and historians

be contextualized? I have been careful in this paper to avoid suggesting that Guaraldi ought to

be included in the canon of jazz piano giants alongside his more influential peers like Bill Evans

and Oscar Peterson, or even West Coast pianists Hampton Hawes and Jimmy Rowles. Three

reasons come to mind. First, any musical canon is a social and historical construct, and taste is

subjective; I am not interested in telling others what music they should enjoy. Second, there is

some merit to Iverson’s accusation that Guaraldi was not “a jazzer’s jazzer.”334 A significant

portion of his output was, at best, tangential to the genre, and even I, a fan, don’t enjoy all of

it.335 And third, membership within a canon is based not merely on a musician’s abilities or

popularity but also his or her influence on future musicians. With nearly fifty years of hindsight,

it is not clear that Guaraldi’s improvisational style was widely influential on mainstream jazz

musicians. (His compositions, however, have had more of an impact. For example, “Cast Your

Fate to the Wind” has been recorded at least thirty-nine times by musicians including Dave

Brubeck, George Benson, Grant Green, and Quincy Jones.336 And “Christmas Time Is Here,” with

more than one hundred covers,337 has arguably joined ranks of cherished jazz standards.)

334 Iverson, “Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi.” 335 Some of the tracks on The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi are especially hard for me to listen to. 336 Tom Lord, The Jazz Discography, tune search for “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” 337 Tom Lord, The Jazz Discography, tune search for “Christmas Time Is Here.”

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However, non-musical factors may partially explain Guaraldi’s minor presence in contemporary

jazz histories. To explain, it may be instructive to draw comparisons with other musicians whose

reputations stagnated due, at least in part, to their popular appeal and financial success.

In “Jazz Historiography and the Problem of Louis Jordan,”338 jazz pianist and

musicologist David Ake investigates why Jordan (1908–1975)—a commercially, critically, and

financially successful jazz musician in the 1940s—is all but absent in jazz history books (or at

least was at the time of the chapter’s publication in 2002). Ake offers several reasons for this

discrepancy, many of which invite comparisons with Guaraldi’s similar historiographical

circumstances.

First, Ake notes that jazz historians and critics may have a vested interest in portraying

jazz in a reverent light. Perhaps today more than ever, jazz enjoys a reputation as lofty and

sophisticated, worthy of study in universities and performances in esteemed venues. This status

was hard won, and it contrasts profoundly with the genre’s early reputation as licentious and

plebeian, especially compared to the more venerated European “classical” music tradition.

Some jazz writers, Ake suggests, “feel it is their duty to ensure that jazz retain this privileged

position, for they seemingly remain on constant vigil so that ‘America’s classical music’—as jazz

is so often called today—appears as ‘cultured’ as its European cousin.”339 Jordan’s accessible,

bluesy, swinging, danceable hits did not conjure an impression of sophistication. His music was

described as “simple” and “fun,”340 adjectives which were not welcomed by historians hoping

to portray jazz as serious art and which could aptly describe many of Guaraldi’s recordings.

338 David Ake, “Jazz Historiography and the Problem of Louis Jordan,” in Jazz Cultures (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2002), 42-61. 339 Ake, “Jazz Historiography and the Problem of Louis Jordan,” 45. 340 Ibid, 47.

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Second, Ake suggests that jazz historians have emphasized the tastes of East Coast jazz

musicians to the detriment of others whose styles reflect musical traditions from farther west

and south. Jordan’s music was heavily rooted in a Southern and Midwest blues tradition that,

by the mid-1940s, was falling out of fashion within New York’s jazz culture. Jordan’s peak

popularity coincided with the development of bebop, and future historians, possibly adhering

to a kind of “musical evolutionary theory”341 in which newer styles make older ones obsolete,

found Jordan’s music insufficiently innovative to be included in linear descriptions of jazz

history.

Although Guaraldi was not slow to incorporate the bossa nova and rock ‘n’ roll trends of

his time, his music, like Jordan’s, was never cutting-edge. The generally upbeat and accessible

Guaraldi sound contrasts greatly with many of the celebrated East Coast trends of his time: the

melodic and rhythmic abstraction of Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet, the free jazz of

Ornette Coleman (1930–2015) and Eric Dolphy (1928–1964), the harmonically novel

compositions of John Coltrane (1926–1967) and Joe Henderson (1937–2001), the lush and

evocative orchestrations of Gil Evans (1912–1988), and the gospel-influenced hard bop of the

Jazz Messengers and the Jazztet. Even Guaraldi’s rock ‘n’ roll influence, shared by countless

fusion musicians in the 1970s, seemed to draw more from the San Francisco jam band tradition

than from the prevailing aesthetics that influenced New York fusion musicians.

Finally, and perhaps paradoxically, the popular appeal of both Jordan and Guaraldi may

have hindered their future reputations. Ake notes that, in an effort to elevate jazz’s artistic

status, some writers and commentators have sought to distinguish the genre from pop music.

341 Ake, “Jazz Historiography and the Problem of Louis Jordan,” 50.

102

Toward that end, they may have downplayed the significance of jazz that was commercially

successful. Ake observes that “from Parker and Gillespie onward, historians’ use of the term

‘jazz’ would always denote a virtuosic, complex, and sophisticated music, one somehow

separated from the commercial marketplace.”342 An odd implication of this attitude is that

authentic jazz, according to these writers, should not be popular. This had an unfortunate effect

on Jordan’s posthumous reputation since his band was, as Ake reports, “one of the most

popular recording acts in the country, and one of the very few African-American bands of the

time to ‘cross over’ to white audiences. Between 1944 and 1949 Jordan’s recordings reached

the broader pop charts nineteen times.” Two such recordings reached number one on the

charts, and several others sold more than a million copies.343

Guaraldi, too, achieved a degree of commercial appeal uncommon for jazz musicians of

his time. And his close association with the popular Peanuts franchise likely contributed to a

perception among some jazz critics that Guaraldi’s music was not to be taken seriously. To

reiterate, I am not arguing that Guaraldi should be taken seriously (whatever that means). I only

intend to point out that extra-musical factors like his popularity and enviable album sales may

have adversely affected his reception by jazz historians and critics.

Even some of the most widely celebrated jazz musicians have at one time or another

faced suspicion due to their popularity. Consider the case of another pianist who, like Guaraldi,

was admired by Miles Davis, played groove-oriented and “Latin”-tinged arrangements, and had

a chart-topping hit album, but who was dismissed by some critics as a “cocktail pianist” whose

music ought not to be considered jazz: Ahmad Jamal. As Michael MacKey discusses in his 2017

342 Ake, “Jazz Historiography and the Problem of Louis Jordan,” 57. 343 Ibid, 46.

103

dissertation, the breakout success of Jamal’s 1958 album At the Pershing: But Not for Me344

(which shattered jazz record sales upon its release and remains one of the best-selling jazz

albums) marked Jamal as “the target of critics, whose accusations followed him for decades.”345

For example, in a September 18, 1958, review in Down Beat, critic Martin Williams wrote with

obvious disdain, “Apparently this is being marketed as a jazz record.” He continues dismissively,

“Jamal plays a very good cocktail piano with praiseworthy musicianship.” About the trio’s

version of “Woody ‘n’ You,” he writes, “it skates along on pleasant rhythmic gimmicks until it is

almost two-thirds over, then Jamal goes into some rather meaningless upper-keyboard

improvisational tinkling.”346 Although reviews of Jamal’s work have become more positive over

time, and today he is widely acknowledged to be among the ranks of jazz giants, the

surprisingly harsh criticism of his first major commercial hit reveals jazz writers’ sometimes

fraught reaction to popularity. If Guaraldi had not become involved with Peanuts, not achieved

such financial success, not covered so many popular songs, not stayed on the West Coast, and

not so eagerly followed the musical trends of his time, would Iverson still have been so quick to

compare Guaraldi unfavorably to Hawes and Rowles?

6.2 Musical Legacy

Regardless of his lukewarm reputation within contemporary jazz discourse, Guaraldi

clearly developed a unique voice that was rooted in the jazz tradition. By most accounts, this is

a laudable achievement. In his essay about the dialectal and idiomatic vocabulary of Sonny

344 Ahmad Jamal, At the Pershing: But Not for Me, recorded January 16, 1958, Argo LP 628, 1958. 345 Michael, MacKay, “From Pittsburgh to the Pershing: Orchestration, Interaction, and Influence in the Early Work of Ahmad Jamal,” PhD diss. (University of Pittsburgh, 2017), http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/32139. 346 Martin Williams, review of Ahmad Jamal, But Not For Me, Down Beat 25, no. 19 (September 18, 1958), 38-39.

104

Rollins, Benjamin Givan observes that “improvised music is embedded in stylistic conventions,”

since “spontaneous invention depends on the sorts of reflexive thought and action that can be

more easily contravened during non-realtime composition.”347 Guaraldi was an improvising

musician, and, as such, drew from a bank of techniques that included both ideas common to

the jazz dialect and those characteristic of Guaraldi’s personal idiom. Givan continues, “Though

each player’s idiom is enmeshed within a larger dialect, the jazz community has always valued

distinctive personal musical identities especially highly.”348

Even if it did not become widely influential, Guaraldi had just such an identity. His use of

3-♭9 licks, enclosures, bluesy double stops, tritone walkdowns, and compositions in “head”

form demonstrate an idiom rooted in the jazz dialect. And Guaraldi’s first two complete albums

as a leader find him engaging directly with the jazz tradition, recording jazz standards by George

Gershwin (1898–1937), Duke Ellington (1899–1974), Billy Strayhorn (1915–1967), Cole Porter

(1891–1964), Jerome Kern (1885–1945), and John Lewis (1920–2001), among others. But he

also developed a personal musical voice. His unique blend of boogie-woogie, jazz, “Latin,” and

rock ‘n’ roll influences coalesced to form a style that defined the sound of the Peanuts

franchise. And his minor-3rd double stops, peak 4th phrases, horn 5ths, and active bass lines

contributed to an improvisational style that is immediately recognizable by his fans.

I suspect that Guaraldi’s influence was not as minor as his absence in contemporary jazz

histories would suggest, especially among West Coast jazz musicians. As I have discussed,

Guaraldi generally embraced popular media of his time. His first complete album included

347 Givan, “Gunther Schuller and the Challenge of Sonny Rollins,” 228. 348 Ibid, 228.

105

“Three Coins in the Fountain,”349 the Grammy Award-winning theme song to the 1955 film of

the same name. His bossa nova phase coincided with the worldwide fascination with the genre.

And it was Guaraldi’s breakout album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, with its lighthearted

blend of bossa nova and swing that drew from popular media of the time, that marked his first

major financial and commercial success. It is no surprise, then, that the mood established on

this album became that which he pursued through most of the rest of his career. Guaraldi

continued to draw from popular culture, soon incorporating into his own compositional idiom

the performance practices and instrumentation of 1960s and ‘70s rock ‘n’ roll.

Unlike many musicians whose names permeate discussions of 1960s jazz in history

textbooks, Guaraldi held no pretensions about the artistic merit of his music. He does not seem

to have been concerned with making art for art’s sake. For him, music was about fun, about

being part of a scene, and about reaching people. Perhaps in this way, Guaraldi’s work was part

of a trend that continues to identify West Coast jazz today.

In a 2018 article titled “The West Coast Jazz Revival,”350 Ted Gioia described West Coast

jazz history as occurring in three waves. The first dates to shortly after the creation of jazz itself,

with founding figures like Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton and Joe “King” Oliver touring California

in the 1920s and Edward “Kid” Ory’s band recording the first jazz record by Black musicians in

Santa Monica in 1922.351 The second wave crested in the 1950s and buoyed the careers of West

Coast figures like Dave Brubeck, Cal Tjader, and Guaraldi himself. Unfortunately, this era of

349 Vince Guaraldi, “Three Coins in the Fountain,” track 9 on Vince Guaraldi Trio, recorded April 1956. 350 Ted Gioia, “The West Coast Jazz Revival,” City Journal, Autumn 2018, https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-jazz-revival. 351 Mainspring Press, “Discographical Update: Re-Dating the Kid Ory ‘Sunshine’ Recordings (1922),” October 29, 2015, https://78records.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/discographical-update-%E2%80%A2-re-dating-the-kid-ory-sunshine-recordings-1922.

106

West Coast jazz was short-lived, stymied by, as Gioia explains, the same thing “that had

stopped the jazz resurgence back in 1920: the leading players found better opportunities

elsewhere.”352

But Guaraldi, a Bay Area native well-funded by his hit records and his Peanuts work,

never moved east, and his penchants for interpreting popular material and drawing from

influences outside mainstream jazz are the very characteristics that Gioia ascribes to the third

wave of West Coast jazz. Today, Los Angeles-based musicians like Kamasi Washington,

Thundercat, Rob Araujo, and Flying Lotus infuse their music with elements of pop, R&B, hip-

hop, and electronica. Like Guaraldi decades ago, these musicians enjoy popular appeal not in

spite of their association with popular genres, but because of it.

The West Coast also continues to benefit from Guaraldi’s early Afro-Cuban jazz. The Bay

Area’s “Latin” jazz scene that he, with Tjader, helped ignite in the 1950s has burned for decades

and is still ablaze today. In the decades since, the area has been home to musicians Pete

Escovedo, Rebeca Mauleón, Mark Levine, Kat Parra, Wayne Wallace, and the Grammy Award-

winning, San Jose, California-based Pacific Mambo Orchestra.

It is not my intention to argue here for Guaraldi’s place within the jazz canon, although

perhaps that would be a fruitful line of research to pursue in the future. In this paper, I only

intend to draw attention to Guaraldi’s laudable contributions to the field. The analyses

provided in the preceding pages both elucidate the key compositional and improvisational

elements that constitute the Guaraldi sound and demonstrate that Guaraldi cultivated a unique

idiom. This idiom was charming and accessible, which bolstered his popular and commercial

352 Gioia, “The West Coast Jazz Revival.”

107

success, but perhaps hampered his future reputation. Guaraldi, who was more interested in

reaching people than making sophisticated music, would likely not have been bothered by this

discrepancy. “Some people think just because you’ve got a hit you’ve sold out. Do you think

you’ve sold out?” an interviewer asked Guaraldi in a clip from Anatomy of a Hit. Guaraldi

response was telling: “I feel I’ve bought in.”353

353 Moore, Anatomy of a Hit, “Program III: Little Man, What Now?” 1:14:33.

108

APPENDIX A

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bang, Derrick. “Guaraldi and the Grateful Dead: Yes, Not, Maybe?” Impressions of Vince (blog). May 11, 2012. http://impressionsofvince.blogspot.com/2012/05/guaraldi-and-grateful-dead-yes-no-maybe.html.

Bang, Derrick. “Fools’ Gold?” Impressions of Vince (blog). October 24, 2020. http://impressionsofvince.blogspot.com/2020/10/fools-gold.html.

Bang, Derrick. Vince Guaraldi at the Piano. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2012.

Bang, Derrick. “Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD.” Five Cents Please, http://www.fivecentsplease.org/dpb/vincecd.html.

Bang, Derrick. “Vince Guaraldi Timeline.” Five Cents Please, http://fivecentsplease.org/dpb/VinceGuaralditimeline.html.

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Billboard. “Chart History: Vince Guaraldi Trio.” Accessed October 7, 2020. https://www.billboard.com/music/vince-guaraldi-trio/chart-history.

Billboard. “Top LP’s for Week Ending May 18.” May 18, 1963. Accessed via Google Books on October 22, 2020. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZwsEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Camus, Marcel. Black Orpheus. Dispat Films, June 12, 1959.

Church on the Hill. Bulliten for September 6, 2015. https://www.fpccs.org/docs/Bulletins/Bulletin_2015-09-06.pdf.

Clark, Colleen B. “The Evolution of the Ride Cymbal Pattern from 1917-1941: An Historical and Critical Analysis.” DMA diss., University of North Texas, 2019. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1505181.

Coker, Jerry. Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improviser. Alfred, 1991.

The Definitive Vince Guaraldi. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2019.

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Doerschuk, Bob, “Remembering the Man Behind ‘Cast Your Fate to the Wind.’” Keyboard, July 1981.

Elingburg, Scott D. “Vince Guaraldi, A Charlie Brown Christmas—Vince Guaraldi, Miles Davis, and LFO Walk into a Bar.” McSweeney’s, December 7, 2015. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/vince-guaraldi-a-charlie-brown-christmas-vince-guaraldi-miles-davis-and-lfo-walk-into-a-bar.

Elwood, Philip. “Pianist with a Biting Attack.” San Francisco Examiner. November 5, 1968.

Elwood, Philip. “Swing Is Away From B’way.” San Francisco Examiner. January 10, 1970.

Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Gioia, Ted. West Coast Jazz. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.

Gioia, Ted. “The West Coast Jazz Revival.” City Journal, Autumn 2018. https://www.city-journal.org/west-coast-jazz-revival.

Givan, Benjamin. “Gunther Schuller and the Challenge of Sonny Rollins: Stylistic Context, Intentionality, and Jazz Analysis.” Journal of the American Musicological Society, 67: no. 1 (2014): 167-237.

Gleason, Ralph. “Vince Knew What It Meant to Play like Count Basie.” San Francisco Chronicle, November 30, 1958.

Gordon, Barry. “He Wrote the Soundtrack to the Life of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang, and Yet His Name Will Probably Escape You.” The Scotsman, February 6, 2009. Reposted by Derrick Bang on “News Clippings and Press Releases.” Five Cents Please. Accessed September 9, 2020. http://www.fivecentsplease.org/dpb/clips29.html.

Griffin, Taylor. “How ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Became One of the Most Beloved Holiday Albums of All Time.” Roughly Explained, December 9, 2017. https://www.roughlyexplained.com/2017/12/charlie-brown-christmas-became-one-beloved-holiday-albums-time.

Iverson, Ethan. “Deck the Halls with Vince Guaraldi,” The New Yorker, November 30, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/deck-the-halls-with-vince-guaraldi.

Iverson, Ethan. “Red’s Bells.” Do the M@th (blog). May 3, 2016. https://ethaniverson.com/reds-bells.

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Lord, Tom. The Jazz Discography. https://www.lordisco.com.

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Mauleón, Rebeca. Salsa Guidebook for Piano & Ensemble. Petaluma, CA: Sher Music Co., 1993.

Melendez, Bill, dir. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Produced by Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson. Originally aired on CBS on December 9, 1965.

Melendez, Bill, dir. It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown. Produced by Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. Originally aired on CBS on September 27, 1969.

Muir, Peter C. “Boogie-Woogie.” Oxford Music Online, October 4, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2228520.

Moore, Richard, dir. Anatomy of a Hit. National Educational Television and Radio Center, 1964.

Moore, Richard, dir. “Bola Sete/Vince Guaraldi Trio.” Jazz Casual. KQED of San Francisco CA. Originally aired September 25, 1963. YouTube video posted by Eduardo Hargreaves, April 18, 2017. https://youtu.be/g162zNoMVLs.

Moore, Richard, dir.“Jimmy Witherspoon.” Jazz Casual. KQED of San Francisco CA. Originally aired on January 4, 1962. YouTube video posted by Pavel Voronin, August 21, 2017. https://youtu.be/j6R-mKBYOeg.

Moskowitz, Gary. “Vince Guaraldi’s Jazz Mass Re-Created for Grace Cathedral.” SF Weekly, August 7, 2015. http://www.sfweekly.com/music/vince-guaraldis-jazz-mass-re-created-for-grace-cathedral.

Oxford Music Online. “‘Horn’ Fifths.” 2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.13363.

Reid, S. Duncan. Cal Tjader: The Life and Recordings of the Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2013.

Simon, Scott, host. NPR Weekend Edition. “A Jazz Pianist, Happy To Work For ‘Peanuts.’” November 27, 2009. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120892574.

136

Thomas, Andrew and Toby Gleason. The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi. Jazz Casual Productions. Not yet available for purchase. Premiered in April 2010.

The Vince Guaraldi Collection. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2001.

Vuckovich, Larry. “Larry Vuckovich: The Many Sides of Vince Guaraldi.” SFJAZZ, June 15, 2016. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvHYDa3LSw.

Williams, Martin. “Lewis, Meade (Anderson) ‘Lux.’” Revised by Barry Kernfeld. Oxford Music Online, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.16536.

Williams, Martin. Review of Ahmad Jamal, But Not For Me. Down Beat 25, no. 19. (September 18, 1958): 38-39.

137

DISCOGRAPHY

The Beatles. Rubber Soul. Recorded October 12-November 11, 1965. EMI Parlophone, 1965.

Benoit, David. This Side Up. Recorded March 11-12, 1985. En Pointe ENP 0001, 1986.

Brubeck, Dave. Quiet as the Moon. Recorded September 20-21 and December 27, 1988. Music Masters 65067-2, 1991.

The Dixiebelles. Down at Papa Joe’s. Sound Stage 7 SSS 15000, 1963.

Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown. GRP Records GRD 9596, 1989.

Garland, Red. A Garland of Red. Recorded August 17, 1956. Prestige LP7064, 1957.

Getz, Stan and Charlie Byrd. Jazz Samba. Recorded February 13, 1962. Verve, 1962.

Granelli, Jerry. The Jerry Granelli Trio Plays Vince Guaraldi and Mose Allison. Recorded 2019. RareNoiseRecords RNR120, 2020.

Guaraldi, Vince and Bola Sete. From All Sides. Recorded mid-January 1965. Fantasy 3362, 1965.

Guaraldi, Vince and Bola Sete. The Navy Swings. Probably recorded 1965. VAG Publishing LLC, April 2010.

Guaraldi, Vince and Bola Sete. Vince & Bola. Recorded August 1963 and Spring 1965. Fantasy FCD-24756-2, 2000.

Guaraldi, Vince. Alma-Ville. Recorded October 1969. Warner Bros WS 1828, 1969.

Guaraldi, Vince. An Afternoon with the Vince Guaraldi Quartet. Recorded October 17-29, 1967. VAG Publishing VAG1121, 2011.

Guaraldi, Vince. A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Recorded October 26, 1964. Fantasy 5017, 1964.

Guaraldi, Vince. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Recorded March and September 1965. Fantasy 8431, 1965.

Guaraldi, Vince. Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits. Fantasy Records FCD-9682-2, 1998.

Guaraldi, Vince. The Definitive Vince Guaraldi. Fantasy FAN-31462, 2009.

Guaraldi, Vince. The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi. Recorded late 1968 early 1969. Warner Bros. WS 1775, 1969.

Guaraldi, Vince. A Flower is a Lovesome Thing. Recorded April 16, 1957. Fantasy 3-257, 1958.

Guaraldi, Vince. The Grace Cathedral Concert. Recorded May 21, 1965. Fantasy 3367, 1965.

138

Guaraldi, Vince. In Person. Recorded December 4, 1962. Fantasy 3352, 1963.

Guaraldi, Vince. Jazz Impressions. Recorded 1956-57. Fantasy 3359, 1964.

Guaraldi, Vince. Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. Recorded November 1961 and February 1962. Fantasy 3337, 1962.

Guaraldi, Vince. Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus [Original Jazz Classics Remasters] (OJC Remaster). Recorded February 1962. Fantasy OJCCD-437-2 [OJC-32328], October 2010.

Guaraldi, Vince. The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi. Recorded mid-1963. Fantasy 3360, 1964.

Guaraldi, Vince. Live on the Air. Recorded February 6, 1974, D&D VG1120. 2008.

Guaraldi, Vince. North Beach. D&D VG4465, 2006.

Guaraldi, Vince. Oaxaca. D&D VG1125, 2004.

Guaraldi, Vince. Oh Good Grief! Recorded March 22, 1968. Warner Bros. WS 1747-2, 1968.

Guaraldi, Vince. Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown TV Specials. D&D VG1118, 2007.

Guaraldi, Vince. The Vince Guaraldi Trio. Recorded April 1956. Fantasy 3-225, 1956;

Guaraldi, Vince. Vince Guaraldi with the San Francisco Boys Chorus. Recorded late Summer and early Autumn, 1967. D&D VG-1116, 1967.

Jamal, Ahmad. At the Pershing: But Not for Me. Recorded January 16, 1958. Argo LP-628, 1958.

The Jazz Scene: San Francisco. Recorded March 1953 and August 1955. Fantasy FCD-24760-2, 1956.

Lewis, Mead “Lux.” “Honky Tonk Train Blues,” recorded May 7, 1936. RCA Victor 25541, 1937.

Marsalis, Wynton and Ellis Marsalis, Joe Cool’s Blues, recorded April 12, June 14, and August 25, 1994, Columbia CK66880, 1995.

Parker, Charlie. At Storyville. Recorded March 10 and September 22, 1953. Blue Note CDP 85108, 1985.

Peterson, Oscar. A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra. Recorded May 18, 1959. Verve, 1959.

Puente, Tito. El Rey Bravo. Recorded 1962. Tico Records SLP 1086, 1962.

Silver, Horace. Song for My Father. Recorded October 31, 1963 and January 28 and October 26, 1964. Blue Note BLP4185, 1965.

139

Tjader, Cal. The Best of Cal Tjader: Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival 1958-1980. Recorded October 4, 1958. Concord/Monterey Jazz Festival Records MJFR-30701, 2008.

Tjader, Cal. The Cal Tjader Trio. Recorded November 1951. Fantasy 3-9, 1953.

Tjader, Cal. The Cal Tjader Quintet: Live at Club Macumba San Francisco 1956, recorded September 3-16 or October 2-28, 1956, Acrobat Jazz ADDCD3084, 2012.

Tjader, Cal. Jazz at the Blackhawk. Recorded January 20, 1957. Fantasy LP 3-241, 1957.

Tjader, Cal. Live at Club Macumba San Francisco 1956. Recorded September 3-16 or October 2-18, 1956. Acrobat Jazz ADDCD3084, 2012.

Tjader, Cal. Our Blues. Recorded April 10, 11, and 15, 1957 and February 15, 1960. Fantasy FCD-24771-2, 2002.

Warner Bros. Jazz Christmas Party. Warner Bros. Records 9362-46793-2, 1997.

Winston, George. Linus and Lucy—The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 1. Dancing Cat Records, 1996.

Winston, George. Love Will Come—The Music of Vince Guaraldi, Vol. 2. Dancing Cat Records, 2010.