Hours of never-before-heard recordings will be available

Craft Recordings has announced a definitive, bonus-filled edition of Vince Guaraldi’s timeless score from the beloved, 1965 animated Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, from Charles Schulz and Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez. While the album has remained a holiday staple for nearly 60 years, this latest edition showcases Guaraldi’s creative process like never before, thanks to hours of newly unearthed session tapes from Fantasy Records’ vaults. Now, fans can experience cues like “Christmas Time Is Here,” “O Tannenbaum,” and “Skating” as they take shape in the studio through dozens of previously unreleased alternate tracks.

In addition, the original 11 track album has been upgraded with a new stereo mix from the original two- and three-track sources by the GRAMMY Award-winning engineer, Paul Blakemore. Both the new mix and original mix can be found along with hours of unreleased material on the Super Deluxe Edition, available as a 4 CD/1 Blu-ray Audio collection box set or as an 80-track digital release. The new stereo mix will also be available alongside a selection of 13 studio outtakes on a Deluxe Edition 2 LP or CD. All formats featuring the new stereo mix will release on October 14th.

For those who prefer the classic mix, the perennial 1965 version of the album will come housed in a striking, embossed gold foil jacket for 2022, while a variety of collectible colored vinyl variants can be found exclusively at select retailers, including Walmart, Target and Amazon. Plus, a limited edition LP of 750 copies, pressed on “Skating Pond” wax, is available exclusively at CraftRecordings.com. All gold foil versions will go on sale on September 16th.

The Super Deluxe Edition offers fans an unparalleled deep dive into all aspects of A Charlie Brown Christmas — placing listeners in the studio as the musicians work through their arrangements. Disc one features the new stereo mix of the album, plus the original remastered 1965 mix, while disc two through four offer more than 50 never-before-heard outtakes from five recording sessions, as Guaraldi and his bandmates craft cues like “Christmas Is Coming” and “Skating.” Disc five delivers the new stereo mix in hi-resolution audio, as well as Dolby ATMOS on Blu-ray audio.

Housed in a hardcover book, the collection guides fans through the entire recording process, thanks to new, in-depth liner notes by Derrick Bang — a Peanuts historian and author of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano (McFarland & Company). Rounding out the package is a special message from the family of Lee Mendelson, the late Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer and co-creator of the Peanuts animated specials. Condensed liner notes are also included in the CD and 2 LP Deluxe Editions, which feature the 2022 stereo mix of the album, plus 13 highlights from the outtakes.

“The wealth of music captured in these half-dozen sessions is — in a word — amazing,” marvels Derrick Bang in his liner notes. “It’s also fascinating to observe how a given tune evolves, over the course of the six weeks these sessions took place, from September 17 through October 28, 1965…. Along the way, you’ll hear all manner of false starts, initially terrific takes that collapse when Guaraldi fluffs a few notes, and outré experiments that sound almost nothing like what we know today.” He continues, “Consider this a ringside seat—a place of honor, watching and listening from the recording engineer’s booth—as the individual songs for this historic album were fine-tuned and ultimately laid down.”

The five sessions featured in the Super Deluxe box set, captured at the Bay Area’s Fantasy Studios and Studio 16, as well as Southern California’s Whitney Recording Studio, are presented in their entirety, including blown takes and cross-chatter between the members of Guaraldi’s trio — bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey for many of them, as well as bassist Fred Marshall and drummer Jerry Granelli for others.

Among the highlights are 18 takes of “Christmas Is Coming,” a lively, Bossa nova-influenced tune that took longer than others to take shape, as Guaraldi struggled to find a conclusion to the song and experimented with instrumentation and stylistic choices. Another selection, “Skating,” transforms over ten takes. The trio can be heard playing around with a series of energetic keyboard and drum bridges, which, Bang writes, are “marvelous from a jazz standpoint, but definitely too aggressive for the scene this tune is intended to back.”

Listeners will also hear Guaraldi putting his own touch on traditional fare, like “Greensleeves” and “O Tannenbaum.” Bang points out that one of the latter song’s outtakes actually appeared in the animated special, “immediately after Linus tells us ‘what Christmas is all about,’ as Charlie Brown exits the school theater carrying his forlorn little tree.” An outtake of “Linus and Lucy,” which became the instantly recognizable Peanuts theme, finds Guaraldi taking a fresh approach with the tune, which was first released in 1964 on Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown. It was this earlier version, however, that ultimately appeared on A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Another favorite is “Christmas Time Is Here,” which is presented on the original album in both instrumental and vocal versions. Initially, the song was written as an instrumental cue. But when Mendelson saw the opening sequence paired with the music, it seemed like something was missing.

Guaraldi enlisted young singers from San Rafael’s St. Paul’s Church Choir to perform the song — the children also served as stand-ins for the Peanuts gang as they sang “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” Several of these singers shared their memories with Bang, including Dan Bernhard.

More than half a century later, new generations continue to fall in love with the holiday special and its enduring music, while year over year, the album remains one of the top-selling holiday and jazz albums. Remarkably, in 2021, A Charlie Brown Christmas reached its highest spot ever on the Billboard 200, landing at No 6, 56 years after its release. Among other honors, the multi-platinum soundtrack has been inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame and was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

4 CD/1 Blu-ray Audio | CD | 2 LP

CD 1: A Charlie Brown Christmas

1. O Tannenbaum (2022 Stereo Mix)
2. What Child Is This (2022 Stereo Mix)
3. My Little Drum (2022 Stereo Mix)
4. Linus And Lucy (2022 Stereo Mix)
5. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (2022 Stereo Mix)
6. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (2022 Stereo Mix)
7. Skating (2022 Stereo Mix)
8. Hark, The Herald Angels Sing (2022 Stereo Mix)
9. Christmas Is Coming (2022 Stereo Mix)
10. Für Elise (2022 Stereo Mix)
11. The Christmas Song (2022 Stereo Mix)
12. O Tannenbaum (Original Stereo Mix)
13. What Child Is This (Original Stereo Mix)
14. My Little Drum (Original Stereo Mix)
15. Linus And Lucy (Original Stereo Mix)
16. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (Original Stereo Mix)
17. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (Original Stereo Mix)
18. Skating (Original Stereo Mix)
19. Hark, The Herald Angels Sing (Original Stereo Mix)
20. Christmas Is Coming (Original Stereo Mix)
21. Für Elise (Original Stereo Mix)
22. The Christmas Song (Original Stereo Mix)

CD 2: The Recording Sessions (September 17, 1965)

1. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 1)
2. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 2)
3. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 3)
4. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Takes 4–5)
5. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 6)
6. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 7)
7. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (#2, Takes 1–2)
8. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (#2, Take 3)
9. Skating (Unnumbered)
10. Skating (#3, Takes 1–2)
11. Skating (#3, Take 3)
12. Skating (#3, Takes 4–6)
13. Skating (#3, Take 7)
14. Linus And Lucy (#4, Take 1)
15. Christmas Is Coming (#5, Take 1)
16. Christmas Is Coming (#5, Take 2)
17. Christmas Is Coming (#5, Take 3)
18. Christmas Is Coming (#5, Take 4)
19. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (#6, Take 1)
20. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (#6, Take 2)

CD 3: The Recording Sessions (September 21-22, 1965/Recording Date Unknown)

1. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 1)
2. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 2)
3. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 3)
4. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Takes 4–6)
5. Christmas Is Coming (#1, Take 7)
6. O Tannenbaum (#2, Take 1)
7. O Tannenbaum (#2, Take 2)
8. O Tannenbaum (#2, Takes 3–4)
9. O Tannenbaum (#2, Take 5)
10. Jingle Bells (#3, Takes 1–4)
11. Goin’ Out Of My Head (Unnumbered)
12. Christmas Time Is Here (Instrumental) (#6, Take 3)
13. Skating (#7, Take 1)
14. Skating (#7, Take 2)
15. Für Elise (Takes 1–2)
16. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (#1, Take 1)
17. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (#1, Takes 2–3)
18. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (#1, Take 4)
19. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (#1, Take 5)
20. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (Rehearsal)
21. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (#1, Take 6)
22. Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) (#1, Take 7)

CD 4: The Recording Sessions (October 28, 1965)

1. Greensleeves (Take 1)
2. Greensleeves (Takes 2–4)
3. Greensleeves (Take 5)
4. Greensleeves (Take 6)
5. Greensleeves (Take 7)
6. Greensleeves (Take 8)
7. Greensleeves (Takes 9–10)
8. Greensleeves (Take 11)
9. Greensleeves (Take 12)
10. The Christmas Song (Take 1)
11. The Christmas Song (Takes 2–3)
12. The Christmas Song (Takes 4–7)
13. The Christmas Song (Take 8)
14. The Christmas Song (Take 9)
15. The Christmas Song (Take 10)
16. The Christmas Song (Take 11)

Blu-ray Audio

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas (2022 Stereo Mix) (Hi-Resolution Audio)
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas (2022 Dolby Atmos Mix)