Vince Guaraldi

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist who composed music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody "Linus and Lucy" and the holiday standard "Christmas Time Is Here". The soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas, composed principally by Guaraldi, became the best-selling jazz album of all time. Guaraldi also performed on piano as a member of Cal Tjader's 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. Guaraldi's 1962 composition "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm on February 6, 1976, at age 47, moments after concluding the first half of a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California.