Ever since my kids started trick or treating, we’ve had a family tradition in our house that revolves around It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. After a night of trick or treating we come home, order pizzas and then pop It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown into the DVD player. It’s a television classic and love it or hate it, it’s been a part of the Halloween season since its debut on October 27, 1966. Now, 52 years later, the film’s soundtrack is getting its first-ever digital release just in time for Halloween.
Featuring all 17 tracks by GRAMMY-winning composer/performer Vince Guaraldi the soundtrack will be released on Friday, October 5 via Craft Recordings and will include a new introduction from the TV show’s executive producer Lee Mendelson along with liner notes by Derrick Bang, Peanuts historian and author of “Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.”
It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (Music from the Soundtrack) features some of the most iconic tracks in pop culture, including the instantly recognizable “Linus and Lucy,” as well as the languid, lyrical “Great Pumpkin Waltz.” The music was recorded on October 4, 1966 at Desilu’s Gower Street Studio in Hollywood, California by Guaraldi (piano) and his longtime friends and trio sidemen – bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey – joined by Emanuel Klein (trumpet), John Gray (guitar) and Ronald Lang (woodwinds). The entire scoring process was overseen by composer, arranger and conductor John Scott Trotter, well-known for a three-decade run as Bing Crosby’s music director and close friend.  The first ever CD and Digital release have been mastered by Joe Tarantino from the original mono sources from those recordings.
“This is the quintessential Vince Guaraldi for our Peanuts’ specials…some of his best atmospheric jazz,” Mendelson shares. “Vince’s score carries the gang with the autumn leaves, through the scary and cold Halloween night. This music comforts the indomitable faith of Linus, still waiting for his hero since 1966 – forever in our ears, hearts and memories.”
“Guaraldi had a strong sense of how music could – and should – be employed to maximize the viewing audience’s emotional response,” writes Bang. “[He] emphatically established the Peanuts ‘musical personality’ with this third outing, and all subsequent prime-time specials owed much to the groovin’ atmosphere that is so prevalent in Great Pumpkin. Guaraldi had a gig for life…and his legacy lives on, expand[ing] by the year, thanks in great part to the jazz swagger given to an insecure blockhead and his lovably crazy beagle.”
It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is available for pre-order on Amazon, via the Craft Recordings Web Store, or find a copy at your local indie record store.
Track listing:
- Linus and Lucy
- Graveyard Theme
- Snoopy and the Leaf/Frieda (With the Naturally Curly Hair)
- The Great Pumpkin Waltz
- Linus and Lucy (Reprise)
- Charlie Brown Theme/Happy Linus
- The Great Pumpkin Waltz (Reprise)
- The Red Baron/Military Drum March
- The Great Pumpkin Waltz (2nd Reprise)
- Trick or Treat
- Fanfare/Breathless/Trick or Treat (Reprise)
- Charlie Brown Theme (Reprise)
- Breathless
- It’s a Long Way to Tipperary/There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding/Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag/Roses of Picardy
- Trick or Treat (2nd Reprise)
- Linus and Lucy (2nd Reprise)
- Charlie Brown Theme (2nd Reprise)
