Benoit is best known for his classic jazz-funk track ‘Life Is Like A Samba’ and as a pianist spent much of the second half of the eighties in the Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen GRP group/label.

GRP is now part of Verve and they’ve got Benoit’s to look over he previous tributes to Schulz’ collection of cartoon characters and recorded some new live tracks. Whilst is isn’t particularly a Christmas album, the association of Charlie Brown and kids TV has been going for decades now with Christmas Specials and there was a Vince Guaraldi A Charlie Brown Christmas album released on CD a couple of years ago.

Just to recap if you’ve missed any part of this media phenomenon in over 50 years, Charles Schulz was the original creator of the cartoon strip Peanuts, Vince Guaraldi composed the original music for the TV shows and Bill Melendez was the animator who produced 75 half-hour Peanuts specials as well as four feature-length movies. And of the characters in the strip, Charlie Brown was the hopeless hero, Peanuts is the smart ass dog, Linus is the dopey blanket sucker who manages to play great jazz on a toy piano and Linus has a sister, Lucy.

And that’s about it, save that for millions of folks who claim that the don’t like jazz, they will tell you that they love the ‘Linus and Lucy’ theme. Perhaps that’s the Christmas link? The most unusual song of hope, togetherness and love as these kids (sorry, cartoon characters) forget their petty squabbling and all start dancing around Linus playing the piano? I’d like to think so as Charlie Brown is all about such warm moments.

So the classic Guaraldi recording ends this CD, what’s the rest of it about? Benoit has selected nine other pieces used in the series; three more by Guaraldi (including two that previously had not been made public), three new versions of Benoit’s own compositions and the remainder are by Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck and Dave Grusin (the latter performed by Kenny G).

The inclusion of Dave Brubeck is astute as Benoit rises to the old masters’ level as this is pop-jazz at it’s best; even Kenny G doesn’t sound like the stereotype Kenny G that his sound is portrayed as. This is testament to Guaraldi’s original tracks as they wer so much more than a soundtrack to a children’s cartoon whilst being a soundtrack to a children’s cartoon; that is what made him so good.

To paraphrase Benoit’s hit, if life is like an episode of Charlie Brown; the track here are (some of) theme tunes of our lives/youth and the album that is dedicated to the memory of Bill Meléndez who recently passed away. A fitting tribute to all concerned and a great holiday time listen.

Reviewed: David Benoit - Jazz For Peanuts - A Retrospective Of The Charlie Brown TV Themes (Peak/Concord) Cat. No. 0888072304543 Release date: December 2008
01. You’re In Love, Charlie Brown featuring David Benoit & Christian Scott (4:05)
02. The Buggy Ride featuring the Wynton Marsalis Septet (4:36)
03. Benjamin featuring Bobby Militello & Dave Brubeck (3:48)
04. The Great Pumpkin Waltz featuring David Benoit (4:18)
05. Wild Kids featuring David Benoit & Taylor Eigsti (4:08)
06. Breadline Blues featuring Kenny G (4:10)
07. Be My Valentine featuring David Benoit (4:36)
08. Rollerblading featuring David Benoit & Christian Scott (3:53)
09. Re-Run’s Theme featuring David Benoit (3:47)
10. Linus and Lucy featuring Vince Guaraldi (3:04)

Links:
www.benoit.com
www.peakrecord.com
www.concordmusicgroup.com
www.vervemusicgroup.com/grp
José Cuauhtémoc “Bill” Meléndez (November 15, 1916 - September 2, 2008)