PURE PEANUTS

Television producer Lee Mendelson was at home one evening in 1963 when he got a call from jazz musician/composer Vince Guaraldi. Mendelson had recently hired Guaraldi to provide the music for a television documentary on cartoonist Charles M. Schultz and his Peanuts comic strip, and now Guaraldi had a new composition he wanted to play him. Mendelson suggested waiting, so he could hear it in person, but Guaraldi would not be put off, telling his producer, “I’ve got to play this for someone right now or I’ll explode!”

So Mendelson listened over the telephone line. Guaraldi’s piece opened with a brisk ostinato piano