Jim Caruso's 12 Days of Christmas... Christmas Time is Here with Peanuts!

By: Dec. 23, 2016
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After an impressive career, jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi was hired to score "A Charlie Brown Christmas," followed by seventeen other Peanuts television specials, until his untimely death in 1976. Can you even imagine those animated features with any other soundtrack? Guaraldi and his trio gave sophisticated heart and depth to what could have been just another forgettable cartoon score. At least one night every Christmas season, I walk the cold sidewalks of New York City, headphones on, and Guaraldi playing. I can be the star of my own movie...enjoying my own slightly melancholy, wistful scene while I reminisce about another year spent in the city I adore.

Jim Caruso made his Broadway debut alongside Liza Minnelli in the Tony Award-winning Liza's At The Palace!, singing, dancing and celebrating the music and arrangements of Kay Thompson and the Williams Brothers. He has won six MAC Awards for his nightclub appearances, performed with the New York Pops in a tribute to Kander & Ebb, performed with Rosemary Clooney in a celebration of Bing Crosby, and sang songs of Hope & Crosby with Michael Feinstein at Carnegie Hall. Jim was honored to sing with Barbara Cook at President Clinton's First State Dinner at the White House. For the past fourteen years, he has hosted the weekly showbiz bash "Jim Caruso's Cast Party" at Birdland, Town Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center and across the globe. He also produces the Broadway at Birdland concert series and has a weekly segment on Legends Radio 100.3 FM called "A New York Minute with Jim Caruso." As a crooner, he performs regularly with Billy Stritch at Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle Hotel. His two cds, "The Swing Set" and "Caruso Live and In Person" are available online.

Over the next few weeks, you can catch Jim hosting Cast Party every Monday at Birdland, and singing at Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle Hotel every Sunday. He'll be joining his pals KLea Blackhurst and Billy Stritch in "A Swinging Christmas" at The Long Center in Austin, and for the seventh year in a row at Birdland during Christmas week.
Photo Credit: Bill Westmoreland

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