There is perhaps no greater compliment for Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts music than this: while it’s impossible to imagine the TV specials without the music, the music holds up just fine minus the visuals. 

Which, oddly, is how it began when 1964’s Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown was released as a standalone after the ill-fated “A Boy Named Charlie Brown” failed to make it to the small screen. 

Continuing its ongoing Guaraldi-reissue campaign, Craft Recordings has released an expanded edition of Jazz Impressions. And with a remaster of the original LP, 11 previously unreleased studio outtakes, five additional bonus tracks and new and contemporary liner notes to provide historic and historical context, this is the must-have set. 

Recorded over three sessions (May 26, Sept. 11 and Oct. 16, 1964) the original album finds pianist Guaraldi, bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey on the original versions of the now-classic “Pebble Beach,” “Linus and Lucy,” “Blue Charlie Brown,” “Baseball Theme” and other cues. Remastered, it sounds better than ever, but disc 2, which begins with a solo Guaraldi running through “Linus and Lucy” in a studio test, is where the magic lies. 

Early takes of all the album tracks give aural insight into their development. The non-album “Blues for Peanuts” hints at what the musicians had in mind beyond what the producers were seeking. And “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Autumn Leaves” – each around 10 minutes long – remind listeners unfamiliar with A Flower is a Lovesome Thing and/or Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus that the Guaraldi Trio made some serious jazz music before dialing it in a bit and becoming the soundtrack for multiple generations of American children and the adults they’d eventually become.