Jazzy ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’ swings on after 57 years

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — There were plenty of reasons Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ shouldn’t have worked. Jazz music for an animated television special featuring the famous comic strip characters? Yet the show has become a holiday tradition from its first airing in 1965, the music performed by Guaraldi’s piano-led jazz trio even more so. What unites Prince, Michelle Obama and Foo Fighters? They all performed the soundtrack’s “Linus and Lucy” in public. Members of show producer Lee Mendelson’s family wish they had the envelope where he hurriedly wrote lyrics to the song “Christmas Time is Here.”