What do you get when you combine the sweet sounds of an obscure West Coast jazz composer with the most popular comic strip of all-time to create an animated Christmas special? “A Charlie Brown Christmas” — one of the most enduring and endearing cultural phenomenons of the last 50 years.
The soundstrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas certainly isn’t new, but it does stand out. Christmas music is filled with jingle bells and snowmen, but not so with Vince Guaraldi’s work. His soundtrack has been recognized and preserved in the National Recording Registry from the Library of Congress.