Vince Guaraldi

The lightly swinging highlights of pianist Vince Guaraldi's score for the 1965 TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas—"O Tannenbaum", "Christmas Time Is Here", "Skating" and, especially, "Linus and Lucy"—are as seductive a musical gateway as jazz has ever enjoyed. (Only Miles Davis' Kind of Blue has sold more copies in the genre.) Born in 1928, lifelong San Franciscan Guaraldi was a mainstay of the city's jazz scene both before and after his Peanuts success. He performed with Cal Tjader before releasing his debut album, Vince Guaraldi Trio, in 1956. His Top 100 hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind", from an album of Brazilian jazz, brought him to the attention of the Peanuts’ producer—ultimately, Guaraldi would write the music for 12 TV specials and one film—and he recorded Brazilian- and Latin-tinged jazz into the early '70s, when he moved to electric keyboards for louder and funkier projects (even jamming several times with his old friend Jerry Garcia). Until his death in 1976, Guaraldi happily embraced his renown as the source of the Peanuts franchise's musical signature while continuing to pursue his own eclectic interests with understated dedication.