I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of jazz ever composed. Listening to it is like watching snow through a window. The room is warm, something is roasting in the oven, and outside the flakes are falling faintly through the universe and upon the trees, the hedges, the rain gutters, the telephone poles, and the rooftops of a thousand apartment buildings in a very big city. This is where you want to be forever. This is Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time Is Here.” It opens with a trembling bass, like someone coming out of the cold, stamping their feet, brushing the snow off their shoulders, hanging up their winter coat, rubbing and blowing on numb fingers, and entering the living room where there is a window for watching the flakes falling faintly upon all the buildings of the living.
“Christmas Time Is Here” is the centerpiece, in my opinion, of the soundtrack for the masterpiece of American culture A Charlie Brown Christmas. It was composed by the Bay Area jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. It first appeared on television on December 9, 1965. It forever married jazz with Peanuts, a comic strip by Charles Schulz. But the story of how Guaraldi’s music and Schulz’s characters came together is filled with accidents.
