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As Vince Guaraldi is honoured with the American Eagle Award by the National Music Council, Craft Recordings is celebrating Guaraldi’s 91st birthday by the definite edition of his iconic music for It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. What you will hear on most tracks of this new and improved “best” version of the soundtrack are the musical cues as recorded by Vince and crew before they were edited for the television special, in show order, as well as a selection of alternate takes. The story of this collection starts in 2019 when Lee Mendelson, not long before he passed away, had been looking to see if he could find any of the original tapes from the recordings used to score the Peanuts specials. The team at Lee Mendelson Film Productions had an opportunity the following year to scour their vast archives. Among their discoveries was a treasure trove of materials from Vince Guaraldi—the GRAMMY® Award-winning jazz pianist, who composed some of the most recognizable cues in television history for PEANUTS® specials throughout the ’60s and ’70s, as well as some of the most beloved jazz albums of the 20th century. One of the most exciting finds, however, were the original analog reels from the Great Pumpkin sessions—which, until this point, were considered lost to time. Accompanied by detailed session notes, the tapes also included a multitude of alternate takes. From these reels, Jason and Sean Mendelson, along with the team at Craft Recordings, assembled the definitive version of the Great Pumpkin score. In the liner notes, the Mendelson’s write, “Not much is known about how Guaraldi wrote and arranged these classic melodies and themes, and even many of the musicians who played with him found his method to be a beautiful mystery…We hope that by listening to this music, especially the bonus material, you will get a glimpse into Guaraldi’s creative process as he and his musicians mold their sound. These [alternate] takes demonstrate the evolution and choices that became the now-famous score.”