Review | A Charlie Brown Christmas at Salle Bourgie

We know “Christmas Time is Here” in Montreal when the Taurey Butler Trio comes back to play their annual Charlie Brown Christmas concert at Salle Bourgie. For the 11th time, Taurey Butler on piano, Morgan Moore on double bass, and Wali Muhammad on drums performed the classic score from A Charlie Brown Christmas, composed by Vince Guaraldi. Member of the Order of Canada and Juno winner Ranee Lee also joined the trio to serenade us with three songs.

Vince Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote much of the popular music associated with the Peanuts TV specials. Prior to his sudden and premature death in 1976, he’d arranged plenty of Christmas classics with a jazzy twist, and incorporated some complete originals like the aforementioned “Christmas Time is Here,” now a classic in its own right. In fact, the term “Christmas jazz” has become synonymous with this soundtrack, and you can find plenty of relaxing Christmas videos on YouTube featuring Guaraldi’s music playing behind images of Snoopy and his friends.

Ranee Lee
Photo: Vladim Vilain

Kim Richardson — an impressive Canadian vocalist — was originally meant to perform the show but unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute. Lee actually stepped in for the concert the day of. The last time I heard Lee, her sound was unfortunately overwhelmed by the grand orchestra and large hall.

This venue and smaller ensemble were perfect, her voice carrying with minimal strain even at the age of 83. She sang “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” (fun, scattered with high notes) and “The Christmas Song” (too much variation in melody from the original for my taste, but sweet)—but my favourite was “Christmas Time is Here.” Lee’s interpretation was soft and unrushed, and her full-bodied lower-register tones shone. Her sound was warm and comforting: a clear distinction from the endearingly off-key singing of the children’s choir so well-known in the original soundtrack.

Taurey Butler
Photo: Orchestre Métropolitain

What Taurey Butler couldn’t express in his limited French (he tried his best to narrate, to a sweet audience’s appreciation), he showed through humour. His self-deprecating jokes landed and his physical comedy at the piano—accidentally substituting Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata for Für Elise and playing high notes that took his hands off the top of the keyboard—was great. He also led us in a sing-along of “My Little Drum,” which was Guaraldi’s triplet-filled version of “Little Drummer Boy.”

I absolutely loved the trio’s long improvisations, particularly in hearing Easter egg-like snippets of other Christmas tunes throughout: a couple seconds of “Carol of the Bells” amid “What Child is This,” a fragment of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in “Skating.”

There was no encore planned, but the trio finished off the night with “Linus and Lucy,” the iconic piece named after the siblings in the comics. Full of syncopations and a boogie rhythm, the catchy and familiar tune gained huge popularity following the airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and has since become the unofficial-official theme of all Peanuts adaptations.

Throughout the concert, Butler and his musicians put their own spin on the music, improvisations being the norm in jazz. The piano is the main focus in the original score, as it was during the concert. However, the trio tried to divide up the focus much more, providing plenty of solos and room for Moore and Muhammad to shine.

Muhammad, ever-enthusiastic in his iridescent and ornate get-up, sounded a tad too loud during pieces like “What Child is This.” This came at the expense of the quiet feeling of nostalgia from the original. This, together with the louder mic set up at the piano, made it more difficult to hear the double bass solos in its higher range.

Still, this wasn’t a major deterrent to the overall effect. These incredibly talented musicians easily captured us with their charm and Christmas spirit. Big or small, Peanuts fan or jazz fan, we all left with a renewed sense of festive, childlike wonder.