His final album for the label, Live at El Matador, had been released in October 1966. The sale of Fantasy Records to Zaentz resulted in both Guaraldi and the label dismissing the twin lawsuits, leaving Guaraldi a free agent. Fantasy executive Saul Zaentz became president in 1967, eventually buying the company from original owners the Weiss brothers in December of that year. He sued in April 1966 in an effort to sever all relationships with the label Fantasy promptly countersued.
Guaraldi's relationship with Fantasy Records began to sour by late 1965 after it was learned he was receiving only five percent of every record sale while Fantasy retained the remaining 95 percent. I want to write standards, not just hits." And I hope some of those tunes will become standards. Gleason if he felt like he sold out with the song, Guaraldi responded, "I feel I bought in." Guaraldi also did not think highly of his piano skills, saying once, "I don't think I'm a great piano player, but I would like to have people like me, to play pretty tunes and reach the audience. When asked by San Francisco Chronicle jazz critic Ralph J. "It's like signing the back of a check", he once remarked. Guaraldi never minded taking requests to play it when he appeared live. While "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" by Guaraldi achieved modest chart success as a single in 1963, a cover version two years later by British group Sounds Orchestral cracked the Billboard top 10 (in the spring of 1965). A gentle, likeable tune, it stood out from everything else on the airwaves and became a grass-roots hit and won the Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition. Fantasy Records released "Samba de Orpheus" as a single, trying to catch the building bossa nova wave, but it was destined to sink without a trace when radio DJs began flipping it over and playing the B-side, Guaraldi's " Cast Your Fate to the Wind ". He might have remained a well-respected, but minor jazz figure had he not written an original number to fill out his covers of Antonio Carlos Jobim/Luis Bonfá tunes on his 1962 album, Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, inspired by the French/Brazilian film Black Orpheus. Guaraldi left the group early in 1959 to pursue his own projects full-time.
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