Vince Guaraldi 🎹 sets the tone for Thanksgiving 🍗

Reader,

The 1973 CBS Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special featured an original soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi and John Scott Trotter. This soundtrack, along with the beloved Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, has arguably exposed more people to authentic jazz music than any other recording.

As we gather with friends and family this week, even those who don’t like jazz (nobody’s perfect), here are some things you can share with them to help them appreciate this great music… and perhaps inspire them to put on some Dave Brubeck after dinner.

This tune is undeniably jazz, but yet I believe it was written to be approachable to a general audience. My observations below highlight how I think he approached this.

Today's 2-5-1

Each week I share 2 phrases, 5 observations from 1 tune. But I’m making an exception for this week, and sharing the full theme.

Here's what I love about this tune:

1. The theme is in 3/4, but the main theme is felt in 2 beats, each of three 8th notes. Why not write this in 6/8? To me, the drums feel like a jazz waltz in 3.
2. The theme is based around simple triads, which makes the music approachable to a general audience. It even starts by outlining the I - IV - V chords, the most common chords found in the blues, rock and role and pop music of the era.
3. The 3rd and 4th bars of theme go outside and play a flat-6, flat-7 before resolving back at 1. This is often called the Super Mario Cadence, but though it’s quite popular in these other other tunes.​
4. In bars 5-8, the simple motif continues, but this time inverted. The chords stay outside the key, ultimately coming back via a tritone substitution.
5. At the end of the first theme, Guaraldi holds out 3 chords. As a contrast to the simple triad harmony that came before, these chords are rich, colorful and altered.