Vince Guaraldi born 17 July 1928

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi, (July 17, 1928 – February 6, 1976) was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. 

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was born Vincent Dellaglio in San Francisco. His last name changed to "Guaraldi" after his mother, Carmela divorced his biological father (whose last name was Dellaglio) and married Tony Guaraldi, who adopted the boy. A loyal son of the Bay Area, Guaraldi graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in the city's Sunset District, and after serving in the military during the Korean War, he returned home and enrolled at San Francisco State University. While attending college, Guaraldi developed a passion for the piano, sparked by the blues and boogie-woogie sounds of Jimmy Yancy, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson. 

When Guaraldi began following their example on the keyboard, he took a detour into jazz, exploring the work of Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans, and guitarist Tal Farlow (Guaraldi dabbled on the six-string as well), and he became a frequent visitor at San Francisco jazz clubs such as Jackson's Nook and The Black Hawk, occasionally sitting in with local acts such as Sonny Criss, Bill Harris, and Chubby Jackson. One of Guaraldi's first notable gigs was an intimidating booking, playing at intermissions at The Black Hawk during a residency by the legendary Art Tatum; Guaraldi pulled it off, and in 1951, he joined the trio of vibraphonist Cal Tjader, appearing on Tjader's first album for the prestigious San Francisco jazz imprint Fantasy Records. 

Guaraldi's first recorded work can be heard on "Vibratharpe," a 1953 release by the Cal Tjader Trio. In 1955, he put together his own trio: longtime friend Eddie Duran on guitar and Dean Reilly on bass--and tackled North Beach's bohemian-hungry club, where his piano work became a huge attraction. It soon came to be recognized as the Guaraldi sound. The original Vince Guaraldi Trio, with Eddie Duran and Dean Reilly, can be heard on two genuinely pleasant releases: "The Vince Guaraldi Trio" (1956) and "A Flower is a Lonesome Thing" (1957). Guaraldi toured in 1956 with Woody Herman's third Thundering Herd, replacing Nat Pierce on piano for one season. 

Inspired by the 1959 French-Brazilian film Black Orpheus (1959) (Black Orpheus) Guaraldi hit the studio with a new trio: Monty Budwig on bass, Colin Bailey on drums--and recorded his own interpretations of Antonio Carlos Jobim's haunting soundtrack music. The 1962 album was called "Jazz Impression of Black Orpheus," which was released on then-owner Saul Zaentz's Fantasy Records, and "Samba de Orpheus" was the first selection released as a single. Combing the album for a suitable B-side number, Guaraldi's producers finally made a new version of a modest original composition titled "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," which became a smash hit, and won the 1963 Grammy for Best Instrumental Jazz Composition. 

                              

Following the success of "Cast Your Fate," Guaraldi recorded a handful of albums with guitarist Bola Sete and composed an unusual song cycle in which he and his trio accompanied the choir of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral.  But it was in 1964 that Guaraldi took his first step toward the music that would make him most famous. Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, a pair of television writers and producers, were working on a documentary about Charles Schulz, the creator of the popular comic strip Peanuts, and they approached Guaraldi to compose the score. The documentary never aired, but when Mendelson and Melendez teamed up with Schulz in 1965 to create an animated Christmas special featuring the Peanuts characters, they wanted a score with a different flavour than most Saturday morning cartoons, and once again asked Guaraldi to collaborate. 

A Charlie Brown Christmas was an immediate hit with audiences and critics alike, and has become a Yuletide perennial, broadcast every December, and Guaraldi's score -- by turns full of contemplative beauty and brimming with high-spirited joy -- was cited by many as one of the best things about the show. When Mendelson, Melendez, and Schulz began work on a second Peanuts special, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Guaraldi was again invited to write the music. 

He became an integral part of the production team behind the specials (generally at least one was produced each year), and also wrote music for the Peanuts-themed feature film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Guaraldi's work on the Peanuts projects kept him busy enough that he would release only six more albums during the rest of his recording career (including two albums for Warner Bros. that found him experimenting with electric instruments), though he kept up a schedule of live performances in addition to his television commitments. 

Guaraldi died suddenly in a hotel room at Menlo Park, California, on February 6, 1976, at age 47 after suffering a massive heart attack. he had completed recording of his score for It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown earlier in the day, and was resting between shows during a nightclub engagement when he collapsed and never woke up.

(Edited from allMusic, IMDb & Wikipedia)