The Vince Guaraldi Trio's score for the 1965 holiday special A Charlie Brown Christmas -- originally commissioned by the Coca-Cola company, if you're into trivia -- is one of our perennial best-sellers here at Kop's Records, right up there with evergreens like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon.

And it's easy to see why. Jazz pianist Guaraldi's soundtracks to the numerous TV shorts based on Charles M. Schulz's long-running Peanuts comic strip are inseparable from the cartoons at this point, and none more so than A Charlie Brown Christmas: those tinsel-twinkling piano lines, nimble basslines and weightless rhythms really have come to sound like Christmas to many in the generations that grew up watching that ageless little show over the holidays during the 56 years it aired annually on network television before the streaming service Apple TV+ eventually stole it away from the masses -- at least those without access to American PBS stations -- in 2020.

Most of the score is Guaraldi's own, although he did bring in a children's choir (paid in ice cream) to sing a few standards like "O Tannenbaum" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" to leaven the overall jazzbo/improv vibe here and there, and despite being rather unconventional for the time it's reliably struck enough of a chord with the masses year in and year out to become conventional. The soundtrack has now sold more than five million copies and was named the greatest holiday album of all time by Billboard magazine in 2021. You'll get no argument from us.

TRACKLISTING:

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

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