It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: Music from the Soundtrack
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: Music from the Soundtrack is a soundtrack album by American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. It was released on October 12, 2018 in the U.S. by Craft Recordings/Concord. It is the soundtrack to the Halloween-themed television special of the same name that originally aired on October 27, 1966. Background. Concord Music reported in mid-2018 that a long-awaited soundtrack album allegedly containing original recordings from the television special were going to be released in time for the Halloween season in 2018 . At the time, it was believed that studio master tapes licensed from Lee Mendelson Film Productions had been unearthed like those featured on the 2007 release "Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown Television Specials" and its follow-up, "Vince Guaraldi and the Lost Cues from the Charlie Brown Television Specials, Volume 2". Guaraldi historian and author Derrick Bang commented that the music Guaraldi composed for "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" "emphatically established the "Peanuts" musical personality," adding that the version of "Linus and Lucy" featured in the cold open sequence was "arguably the best  arrangement…that Guaraldi ever laid down, thanks in great part to Ronald Lang's flute counterpoint." (This version was again utilized in the 1969 feature film "A Boy Named Charlie Brown".) The score was performed by the Vince Guaraldi Sextet, featuring Guaraldi on piano, Monty Budwig on bass, Colin Bailey on drums, John Gray on guitar, Ronald Lang on woodwinds and Emmanuel Klein on trumpet. It was orchestrated by John Scott Trotter, and arranged by Guaraldi and Robert G. Hartley. All the music was recorded on October 4, 1966, at Desilu's Gower Street Studio in Hollywood. Release and critical  reception. Upon release, it was learned that Concord Music did not have access to any master studio recordings (it is unknown if any original music from the recording sessions survive). Instead, tracks consisted of music culled directly from the existing television soundtrack minus the dialogue track. This resulted in all other elements remaining intact, including sound effects. Bang commented that the individual tracks "feature music only as it's heard in the animated special, with short edits, fades and some "very" abrupt stops…along with sound effects 'baked in'" which added "clutter" to the songs. "MusicTAP" critic D. W. Dunphy  was equally underwhelmed, saying, "there is something wrong about the "It’s The Great Pumpkin" soundtrack. The audio sounds struck directly from the monophonic television program soundtrack," complaining that "the music here is also presented with the sound effects, but not the dialogue. These are some of the puzzling choices. I could have easily accepted either the strictly music-only version (or as much of it as was available) and the full audio version as a sort of audioplay." Dunphy highlighted the fact that in 1978 former Disney parent company Buena Vista released the exact soundtrack as a children’s  book and record set on its "Charlie Brown Records" label. "Craft Recordings had an opportunity to take full advantage of a 78-minute compact disc and have both the full audio version, dialogue included, and the music-only version on the same disc. Instead, we have some odd half-measure here that doesn't quite honor either the television special or Guaraldi’s contributions." Dunphy concluded calling the release "a missed opportunity," saying that children "who not only grew up with the specials but with those book and record sets are now parents (and some, grandparents) themselves...might welcome the  greater permanence of either a CD, a digital file version, or a re-released vinyl LP version of the complete, unexpurgated "It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"." Personnel. Credits adapted from 2018 liner notes.