From the very early days of his performing and recording career, Vince Guaraldi was writing his own compositions. Some of the early ones were classic bop and bossa-nova; others demonstrated the gentle Latin influence that would consume him for awhile ... and still others clearly anticipated the wealth of Peanuts themes that would put him on the map, beginning in 1964.
Some specifics can be found at BMI, an organization that was founded 60 years ago on the idea that all songwriters,
composers and publishers have the right to be paid for the use of their intellectual property no matter how that property is used.
Thus, BMI is a music performing rights organization, which represents songwriters (even when they
happen also to be performers), as well as film, television, musical theater and classical music composers and, of course, music publishers.
BMI collects money from the businesses that use music in the course of their day, and then pays out that money
as royalties to the composers and publishers of the songs and compositions they play.
BMI maintains an ongoing list of any composer's work, and Guaraldi is no different. The information is fascinating, both from the standpoint of what is on the list, and what is not. Then, too, it's obvious that Guaraldi's selections live on, and have been used long after the jazz pianist's death; I doubt he was with us, for example, when some of his themes wound up as background cues for Live with Regis and Kathy Lee. And, of course, "Linus and Lucy" has turned up on a few TV commercials.
What follows is the current BMI list, but divided into four alphabetical sections:
The first list is of Guaraldi's BMI-registered songs that have appeared on LP or CD. Each of these includes the name of the album on which it appears, with a link that will take you to a description of said album in this document's companion, Vince Guaraldi on LP and CD.
The remaining cuts, which Guaraldi did not have a chance to record before his death, are subdivided into two sections: cues that are known to be from Peanuts TV specials (and, thus, arguably are available, if only in truncated fashion on video and DVD); and those which appeared elsewhere ... or remain a mystery. It's easy to determine, for example, that "KSTP News at 5 A.M. -- background cues" was used for a TV news show, but what in the world might "Lethargy" and "Eddie Bone" be?
Finally, the fourth and shortest list is of known songs that do not appear in the BMI registry ... either because the BMI list isn't up to date, or because they were registered elsewhere.
