Vince Guaraldi

Best remembered composer and performer

Fall 1947 Graduate

        Vince, best remembered as the composer and soundtrack pianist for the Peanuts television Specials, is known as one of the finest jazz composers and performers in the United States. After serving with the United States Army in Korea, Vince returned to San Francisco where he attended the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 1950, he joined Cal Tjader's band, with which he played off and on until 1957 when he joined Woody Herman and his Thundering Herd. Vince traveled throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East with Woody Herman, including Carnegie Hall in New York.

        Vince returned to the Bay Area and established himself as a performer and composer both locally and nationally. Music greats as diverse as Sergio Mendes and Miles Davis were admirers. Vinces' big break came when he recorded an album of his interpretations of the Bossa Nova music for the movie Black Orpheus. One of those cuts, Samba De Orpheus, is a jazz classic. But the record company told Vince that he hadn't recorded enough music for a full album. So Vince recorded a number which he had written four years earlier to "fill" that album. That song, Cast your fate to the Winds, became a "Top 40" hit, staying on the charts for 22 weeks and earning Vince a gold record and a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in 1963. He was the first San Franciscan to win a Grammy.

        Vince's most recognizable work is the music he composed for the Charlie Brown television specials. From 1963 through 1975, Vince composed the music for 16 of the television specials and one movie. His most ambitious project was the composition of a jazz mass, commissioned by Bishop James Pike of the Espiscopal Diocese of California to commemorate the completion of Grace Cathedral. The Guaraldi Mass, named by Bishop Pike, is a blending of Gregorion chant, plain song and jazz. It was Vince's most satisfying achievement.

        Vince Guaraldi died of a heart attack on February 6, 1976 between sets at Butterfield's, a jazz club in Menlo Park. He was 47 years old.

        In recognition of his many accomplishments, Vince was selected as one of the eight initial inductees into the Abraham Lincoln High School Wall of Fame.