Song of the Day 12/23: Cyrus Chestnut, “Linus and Lucy”

Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack album for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is only No. 10 on the list of best-selling holiday albums but — with no disrespect to Elvis Presley, who holds the top spot — it might be the most universally beloved. Billboard named it the No. 1 “Top 200” holiday album ever, in part because it’s charted among the top 10 holiday LPs several years in the 2000s, and this year it reached No. 2.

A surprising number of musicians credit the special with sparking their childhood interest in jazz. Pianist Cyrus Chestnut liked it so much he devoted an entire LP to covering the same playlist Guaraldi did, along with an original composition, for his 2000, also titled “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” In contrast with Guaraldi’s smooth, fluid style, Chestnut’s bop and gospel influences give the tunes a different spin.

Like much of the instrumental music in “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” this tune was written for the Peanuts characters, but not the Christmas special. Producer Lee Mendelson had asked Guaraldi the previous year to score a documentary he had done about Charles Schulz and his “Peanuts” characters. “Linus and Lucy” was the first piece he composed.

Networks passed on the documentary, so Guaraldi released the songs on a 1964 LP, “Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown,” and when was hired again when Coca-Cola proposed a Christmas special. His soundtrack combined several traditional tunes with a few of his compositions. One, the downbeat “Christmas Time Is Here,” has become a holiday standard, but “Linus and Lucy” transcended the season to become synonymous with “Peanuts.”

Guaraldi’s original actually charted as a single on the Hot 100 last year at No. 37.