With his work on the music for the animated children’s 1965 Christmas television program, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi left a musical legacy for visual media that transcends merely being iconic. While he did not compose the original soundtrack music for the 1959 film Black Orpheus, his 1962 album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, recorded by The Vince Guaraldi Trio, is perhaps more well known and celebrated than the also exceptional score by Luiz Bonfa and Antônio Carlos Jobim. The film was directed by Frenchman Marcel Camus. It won the Palme d’Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Best Foreign Language Film at the 1960 Academy Awards, and Best Foreign Film at the 1960 Golden Globe Awards.
Craft Recordings has reissued the album in various 60th anniversary formats in stereo. Along with the 3-LP vinyl, 2-CD and 24-track digital reissues, there is a Small-Batch limited-edition One-Step pressing. This review will cover the Deluxe Expanded 3-LP, black vinyl set. First, this set is beautifully packaged. It is in a tri-fold album jacket, with an Obi-strip. The vintage-era labels perfectly replicate the look of the original Fantasy release.
The vinyl albums come in archival poly-lined sleeves. There are new liner notes by Andrew Gilbert, who has written for the California-based San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and KQED Arts. Guaraldi and Fantasy are both native to San Francisco. The original liner notes on the back cover were by Ralph J. Gleason. The 180-gram vinyl was pressed at RTI, the lacquers were cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from digital files using the Plangent Process, and the album was remastered by Bernie Grundman. The sound quality on these albums is superb.
The first record includes the original album. This was Guaraldi’s third album. Two songs were composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and two by Luiz Bonfa. There is also a cover of Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” and Buddy Johnson’s “Since I Fell For You.” Of the two Vince Guaraldi compositions, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” was a major crossover top-40 hit and won the Grammy award for Best Original Jazz Composition.
The success of Guaraldi’s sound is inherent here, as he mixes light rhythms with his melodic keyboards. The music is almost West Coast cool with an infectious swing. This is all aided by Guaraldi’s seamless mixing of infectious Brazilian melodies and rhythms of Bossa-Nova music, which makes for an intoxicating musical blend. Guaraldi’s contribution to introducing the world to Brazilian music is often overlooked by the fact that this album and Jazz Samba, the first Brazilian album from Stan Getz (and Charlie Byrd) were both released in April of 1962.
The second album includes alternate takes, and the third includes alternate takes and outtakes. The sixth side of this package includes three previously unreleased outtakes of the song “Jitterbug Waltz,” a composition that does not appear on the original album and that is associated with Fats Waller. There are 16 bonus tracks, 12 of which were previously unreleased, and in many cases the alternate takes and outtakes are longer.
This is a reissue that works on many levels and is offered in a wide variety of formats. It is surprising that it has been so long since the album was reissued on vinyl, but it’s clearly worth the wait. It joins the other Guaraldi album issued in many formats from Craft, A Charlie Brown Christmas, as an iconic jazz album produced for, or related to a visual medium that is a must-have for jazz lovers, audiophiles, collectors, and movie and television soundtrack fans.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A+
