DAVE BRUBECK: Quiet As The Moon - Music from The Peanuts TV Special "This Is America, Charlie Brown"

In 1988, Lee Mendelson, producer of the Peanuts television specials, approached me, along with several other jazz musicians, to create the background music for his primetime cartoon series "This is America, Charlie Brown". Each of us was given a story in which the Peanuts gang was involved in a significant episode in American history. I was assigned the show dealing with the NASA space station. With a preliminary story board before us, Lee and his wife, Desiree, and I sat one afternoon in Russell Gloyd's home in California, looking at the sketches and playing over some tunes, which we thought might fit the mood of the scenes. When we reached the recording studio we had a rough timing for the length of each cue. Expanded versions of these original short segments were recorded immediately following the soundtrack session. "Unisphere" and "Forty Days" were recorded with my sons, Daniel, Chris and Matthew, when Matt was home for a Christmas visit. Early this spring, Bobby Militello joined Jack Six, Randy Jones, Matthew and me for a final session in San Francisco.