three decades later, in an effort to correct the matter, Fantasy surmised that the recordings with Budwig and Bailey were employed in the television special while Marshall and Granelli recorded the album. Despite this, other musicians have claimed to have recorded the special's music: bassists Eugene Firth and Al Obidinski and drummers Paul Distel and Benny Barth. Firth and Distil are noted as performers on a studio-session report Guaraldi filed for the American Federation of Musicians. Not all music featured in the current version of the holiday special was released on the soundtrack. After the inaugural broadcast of the special in December 1965, Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez fitted several scenes with the songs "Charlie Brown Theme," "Happiness Theme" and "Frieda (with the Naturally Curly Hair)", all lifted from Jazz Impressions of A Boy Named Charlie Brown. In addition, "Air Music" (aka "Surfin' Snoopy") from the soundtrack of Charlie Brown's All Stars! was inserted in the scene where Snoopy is decorating his doghouse with Christmas ornaments. These four additional songs were not included in the soundtrack release as they were not part of the original show. Additionally, tracks "What Child Is This" and "The Christmas Song" are on this recording, but were not included in the special. Reception Commercial performance On May 10, 2022, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the album quintuple platinum for sales of 5 million copies, making it the second-best-selling jazz album in history, behind Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959). A Charlie Brown Christmas first appeared on a Billboard magazine music sales chart on the week of December 19, 1987, when it debuted and peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Christmas Albums sales chart. The album charted on the Billboard Christmas Albums chart every Christmas/holiday season from 1988 through 2003, peaking as high as No. 8 in both 2001 and 2002. The album also charted on the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart during the Christmas/holiday season every year from 1991 through 2003, peaking as high as No. 6 in 2001. It became the first jazz soundtrack album to reach the Top 10 outside of a specialty album chart (i.e. Christmas Albums, Top Pop Catalog Albums, Kids Albums) when, in January 2021, it reached No. 10 in the Billboard 200 chart. Derrick Bang, Guaraldi historian and author of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano, noted the significance of such a "huge" accomplishment, with