The Cartoon Christmas Trio, featuring bassist Rob Swanson, left, drummer Jackie Brown and pianist Jeff Knoettner, will return to Lancaster's Iron Hill Brewery Wednesday.
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" is a classic.
Generations have grown up watching poor Charlie Brown search for the meaning of Christmas in the hyped-up, materialistic world around him.
And, for many, the musical score of the 1965 TV show, written by Vince Guaraldi, is just as memorable.
The jazzy, calm, slightly melancholy music came to represent a certain feeling that comes with the holiday season.
For bass player Rob Swanson, it's what gave him his interest in jazz. And it's why the Cartoon Christmas Trio, coming to Iron Hill Brewery on Wednesday, came into being.
"I was working at a jazz club in Wilmington (Del.) one night after playing a regular gig, and we were sitting around talking about it, and I realized that the 'Charlie Brown' soundtrack is what got me into jazz as a player," he remembers.
Fellow musicians, pianist Jeff Knoettner and drummer Jackie Brown, loved it too.
"So I had a conversation with the bar owner and we thought it would be a great idea to play Guaraldi's music," Swanson says.
The Cartoon Christmas Trio was born in 1995 and they were a hit.
But two years later, the bar where they played in Wilmington shut down.
So Swanson talked to his friend Kevin Finn, who had opened the first Iron Hill Brewery in Newark, Del.
"I told him, hey, we've got this thing and people are really into it," he recalls. "So we played there and we've done it every year since at all of his restaurants."
That's eight restaurants now. The Cartoon Christmas Trio has a full-blown tour going.
Their concerts also feature music from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "Frosty the Snowman," "The Little Drummer Boy," and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."
And they throw in a few Christmas songs they love, like "Sleigh Ride."
"We always have a great time," says Swanson. "It's a very family-oriented show, we want kids to come out. It may be their first experience with live jazz and it's so accessible."
The Charlie Brown music is a natural for them to play because it was written for a trio. Not all the songs they play were.
"Some of the stuff, we play around with," he says. "That's the beauty of the jazz thing. Tunes can continue to morph and change. We add new things every year."
But Guaraldi's music is sacred.
"It makes sense to be respectful and mindful of the instrumentation," he says. "I think the reason it's so memorable is, for me personally, it's the perfect mix of quality music tied to the visual. When you see Snoopy ice skating and you hear the Guaraldi tune, "Skating," it's just magical. It hits you from all your senses. It's this bond of the visual and the aural."
And of course, Swanson notes, it's got the nostalgia factor going too. It's a part of people's holiday.
"And there's this theme of melancholiness," he says. "Maybe it's calming against the crazy rush of the Christmas season."
Hey, Charlie Brown could relate to that.
The Cartoon Christmas Trio Wed. 7-9 p.m. Iron Hill Restaurant 781 Harrisburg Pike, 291-9800
Jane Holahan - Lancaster New Era
(Dec 15, 2009)