Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library associate Melanie and features some autumnal music.
Autumnal Mellow
It’s the autumnal equinox, which means that fall is officially upon us, so here is a playlist of some mellow tunes that make me think of the fall season.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist features a selection of music featuring songs that mention the color green in their titles curated by our Music Library Associate, Melanie.
It’s almost time for St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) and the first day of Spring (March 20th), so I have had the color green on the brain of late. Herewith, a collection of songs that mention the color green in their titles. Enjoy!
Editor’s Note:Our Spider Sounds holiday music extravaganza continues today (you can check out part 1 here). We asked folks who work in the Parsons Music Library, Boatwright Memorial Library, and the Music Department to share some of their favorite music to listen to during the holiday season. Any holiday and all genres of music were fair game and we got quite a fun selection — so much so that we split everyone’s picks across two posts! Links will take you to either the library catalog or to otherrelevantinformation. Do you see any of your favorites on this list? If there are favorites or overlooked classics you’d like to add, please share them in the comments to this post! We at the Parsons Music Library wish you all a peaceful and enjoyable Winter Break.
A list of holiday favorites (familiar and otherwise) — part the second:
We’ve shared lots of holiday music in the past couple of posts. What are some of your favorites? Let us know in the comments on this post (or the first post in the series). Some of the selections shared stream on UR’s audio subscription services and some are available as CDs. Stop by the Parsons Music Library to pick up some holiday tunes for listening — or even some scores and do some music making of your own this season!
Editor’s Note: Spider Sounds presents a special holiday edition today (it’s so special we’ve broken it into two parts!). We asked various folks who work in the Parsons Music Library, Boatwright Library and the Music Department to share some of their favorite music to listen to during the holiday season. Any holiday and all genres of music were fair game and we got quite a fun selection. Links will take you to either the library catalog or to otherrelevantinformation. Do you see any of your favorites on this list? If there are favorites or overlooked classics you’d like to add, please share them in the comments to this post! Tune in this Friday for part 2 of our Holiday Music Special!
A list holiday favorites (familiar and otherwise):
The special was atypical for most cartoons at the time because of its contemplative message, its use of real children (some of whom were too young to read) to voice the characters as opposed to adult voice actors and its LACK of use of a laugh track. (Peanuts creator Charles Schulz refused to allow one saying he wanted to “let the people at home enjoy the show at their own speed, in their own way.”)
A Charlie Brown Christmas was also noteworthy for its holiday-infused jazz soundtrack created by musician/composer Vince Guaraldi.
Jazz musician/composer Vince Guaraldi
Guaraldi became involved with the Peanuts before the start of production for the Christmas special. Producer Lee Mendelson heard Guaraldi’s 1963 radio hit “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” while traveling by taxi on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and initially commissioned Guaraldi write a jazz soundtrack for a television documentary about Charles Schulz called A Boy Named Charlie Brown that wound up never being broadcast. According to Mendelson, the first performance of “Linus & Lucy” occurred over the phone during the production of the documentary. Fortunately, the Christmas special allowed the piece to find a home.
Peanuts characters dance to Guaraldi’s iconic “Linus & Lucy”
The jazz soundtrack to the special was initially a hard sell, both to Charles Schulz (who was not much of a jazz fan at the time) and to the network since jazz had never been used in an animated special before. Despite Schulz’s initial feelings about jazz, he pushed for Guaraldi’s music to be included because he believed it created a perfect “bubbly, childlike tone” for the show.
Interestingly, the song “Christmas Time Is Here” was something of a happy accident. According to Lee Mendelson: “For the Christmas Show, [Vince] wrote an original melody that wasn’t in the documentary. It was a beautiful melody that opened the scene where the kids are skating. When we looked at the final cut, it seemed to me to be very slow. I said, ‘Let me see if I can find some lyricists to put some words to it.’ I couldn’t find anybody. I sat down at my kitchen table and in 10 minutes I wrote a poem called ‘Christmas Time Is Here’ to the melody. I wrote all the words down, handed it to Vince, and said, ‘Find a choir of kids to sing this.’ He had been working with a choir to do a jazz mass in San Francisco. He rushed them all together, about two days later. So that whole thing was written and recorded in about over a two-day period and then rushed into the final mix [of the special].” The song has gone on to become a holiday standard and has been covered by many artists including Tony Bennett and Diana Krall.
In fact, it is hard to imagine the holiday season in the US now without the beloved special and its music!
The Parsons Music Library has a special display about A Charlie Brown Christmas and Vince Guaraldi that you can visit through the end of the year — come check it out!