Cloth Ears No.2

Vince Guaraldi Trio 'Linus & Lucy' (Fantasy Records, 1965)

If you think I'm slack with my posts, you should see how slack I am posting music - one every three months if you're lucky.

As you'll see below, Olivia goes swimming on Tuesdays and whoever takes her gets to watch from poolside. She's been going for a year or so now and it's only dawned on me today to take the headphones for the N91.

Her spashing and floating was soundtracked quite nicely - which I may share over the coming days - it included a 10 minute version of 'Halcyon', a corker from Space Raiders, a true forgotten classic from Swell and this rather fine piece of music. I'm a real sucker for old piano music - esp boogie woogie - which isn't something you should probably admit too readily. Don't know where my liking comes from, but there's something fantastically uplifting about it. But it's not just the music, it's the rich history of bar-room piano playing and the characters it attracted. But that's for another time because this is jazz and that's a whole different wotsit.

Anyway, Guaraldi was responsible for the musical accompaniment to the Charlie Brown cartoons scoring no less than 16 specials. To be honest, most of it is muzak dirge, but there are moments of blinding musical genius of which 'Linus & Lucy' is one.

As an aside, some bright spark at the label decided that the album on which it appeared, 1965's 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', needed touching up and so it was re-mastered and reissued last year. Were the fans happy? Erm, nope. The fuss got so bad the label issued a flipping statement.

Music eh? Mess with it at your peril.