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Drummer, percussionist, composer, and bandleader
Jerry Granelli possessed a deftly lyrical, fluid approach to music. He was treasured by other musicians as a timeless and chameleon-like artist, capable of transcending era, genre, and even his own style to serve the music at hand. He played on some of the most celebrated jazz recordings in American music including
Vince Guaraldi's
Cast Your Fate to the Wind: Jazz Impressions of Black Oprheus and
Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as
Mose Allison's
Your Mind Is on Vacation. In addition to a six-decade career in jazz,
Granelli also played with folk group
the Kingston Trio, psychedelic rock with
We Five, and worked with Sly Stone as a sideman.
Granelli co-founded Naropa Institute's Creative Music Department with
Collin Walcott, and released his leader debut, Visions, in 1978. While teaching at the Cornish Institute in Seattle during the '80s,
Granelli met
Jay Clayton,
Gary Peacock,
Ralph Towner, and
Julian Priester, who worked on the drummer's
One Day at a Time album in 1989. During the 1990s, his Koputai offering won accolades globally, even as he worked as a sideman with
Jane Ira Bloom,
Charlie Mariano, Annabelle Wilson,
Ford, and
Lee Konitz. That decade saw him form two recording and performing bands: Jerry Granelli UFB and
Jerry Granelli & Badlands. He released The Only Juan with pianist
Jamie Saft in 2001, and helmed the rockist
V16 Project in 2003. After the issue of 2010's solo percussion outing 1313,
Granelli led the session for 2017's
Dance Hall with guitarists
Robben Ford and
Bill Frisell.
Granelli was born in San Francisco's Mission District in 1940. He was exposed to jazz early by his dad -- who loved
Gene Krupa and played drums in an Italian wedding band -- and his uncle, a hardcore bebop fan.
Granelli claimed he learned to sit at his dad's kit and play
Louis Jordan's "Open the Door Richard" by the time he was four. After rebuffing his parents' attempt to get him to learn the violin,
Granelli studied under classical player Al Carr, then sat in when his dad's friends played Dixieland standards, and competed in local contests until he beat virtually every child and teen to come along -- he was ten. His dad would take him out to jazz gigs once a week on a scene that boasted the Jazz Workshop, the Blackhawk, Jimbo's Bop City, and The Lighthouse. At 12, his uncle took him to hear
Charlie Parker. Hearing
Max Roach's melodic and harmonic playing on "Parisian Thoroughfare" caused an epiphany: He had his first glimmer of "a musician that plays the drums." As a teen,
Granelli spent two years studying with
Dave Brubeck Quartet drummer
Joe Morello, which proved invaluable to his career.
Granelli also saw and listened intently to drummer
Jo Jones,
Roy Haynes,
Philly Joe Jones,
Danny Richmond, and
Elvin Jones, all of whom proved kind and generous to the young musician.
Granelli played in numerous pickup bands, including cabaret and R&B groups. He got his first break in the early '60s; after touring with the Johnny Hamlin Quartet,
Granelli discovered that
Vince Guaraldi's rhythm section had moved to Los Angeles. The pianist had many bookings due to the chart and radio success of
Cast Your Fate to the Wind.
Guaraldi gave the young drummer a shot at playing a series of gigs in Sacramento, then hired him. He remained with the pianist's group and played on virtually all of
Guaraldi's Charlie Brown-themed recordings including Jazz Impressions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown (1964) and
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965); the latter became one of the most beloved soundtracks in American music history.
Granelli loved the experience and the money he received from playing with
Guaraldi, but found it creatively constricting. He had heard
Dewey Redman and
Pharoah Sanders at Bop City; after finishing on the bandstand with his regular gig, he spent four hours playing with vanguard players at Bop City. After leaving
Guaraldi,
Granelli joined progressive jazz pianist
Denny Zeitlen's group, recording the studio LPs Carnival and
Zeitgeist for
Columbia. He also played on the trio's Live at the Trident and accompanied many jazz vocal stars including
Carmen McRae,
Jimmy Witherspoon,
Lou Rawls, and pianist/songwriter
Mose Allison; he played on the latter's career-defining
Your Mind Is on Vacation in 1976.
Granelli also met radio program host and aspiring producer Sylvester Stewart (pre-
Sly & the Family Stone), who investigated and nurtured all kinds of folk and psychedelic musicians.
Granelli's kit work on
We Five's "You Were on My Mind" propelled the single to number three and double-platinum status. He also spent time playing live with pianist
Bill Evans but declined to join his trio.
Granelli also played in the non-jazz group the Ensemble. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as pioneers of the psychedelic era. Already a Buddhist,
Granelli went to hear Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa speak. The drummer was so taken with the talk that he compared it to seeing
Charlie Parker for the first time. He visited the fledgling Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in 1974 and 1975 and moved to the Buddhist University to teach in 1976. He and
Oregon's
Collin Walcott co-founded the Creative Music Department.
Granelli served as its co-director until 1980. While at Naropa, he issued his leader debut, Visions in 1978. The drummer went to teach at Seattle's Cornish Institute in 1980, where he met and played with fellow instructors
Ralph Towner,
Julian Priester,
Gary Peacock,
Robben Ford, and vocalist
Jay Clayton, with whom he released the album Sound Songs for JMT in 1987.
In 1990,
Granelli issued
One Day at a Time and Koputai as a leader with his colleagues as sidemen. It commenced an intense period of activity for the drummer/ instructor. First he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and taught at a conservatory. In 1991, he co-led the session for Forces of Flight with bassist
Glen Moore and vocalist Annabelle Wilson, and followed it quickly with the conceptual jazz oratorio
A Song I Thought I Heard Buddy Sing and
Another Place before taking part in the
Lee Konitz-led date
Haiku.
Granelli formed two bands during the decade: Jerry Granelli UFB, who issued
News from the Street in 1995 and
Broken Circle a year later (on the Intuition label), and
Jerry Granelli & Badlands'
Enter, A Dragon (1998) and Crowd Theory (1999) on Songlines. The drummer also played on dates by
Ford and
Charlie Mariano during those years. He closed the decade with his own Music Has Its Way with Me in 1999.
The new century kicked off with a bang for the drummer and professor. In 2000, at the suggestion of
Charlie Haden, he was hired to play on the
Pat Metheny &
the Heath Brothers' outing Move to the Groove, which also included
Ralph Towner on synth.
Granelli and pianist
Jamie Saft began their long, ongoing collaboration with The Only Juan for Loveslave in 2001 and recorded the avant duo outing Iron Sky for the label with clarinetist
Jeff Reilly. Two years later,
Granelli formed the avant-rock outfit
V16 Project with bassist
Anthony Cox and guitarists
David Tronzo and
Christian Kogel, and they issued a self-titled effort.
Granelli's Sandhills Reunion appeared in 2004 and placed the drummer in the company of
Francois Houle,
Reilly,
Kogel,
Rinde Eckert, and others. Two more
V16 Project outings were also released,
The Sonic Temple: Monday and Tuesday (2007) and Vancouver '08.
In 2010,
Granelli became a Canadian citizen and issued the widely acclaimed solo percussion outing 1313 on the tiny Divorce label. He and
Saft released the duo outing
Nowness for the pianist's Veal imprint in 2013. In 2015,
Granelli issued What I Hear Now for Canada's
Addo label, leading a pianoless sextet. Two years later, the universally acclaimed
Dance Hall appeared from JustinTime/Nettwerk. A good-time set of blues and R&B tunes produced by
Lee Townsend,
Granelli's crew included arranger
Stephen Bernstein, guitarists
Ford and
Bill Frisell, saxophonists
Steve Kaldestad and
Bill Runge, and trumpeter
Derry Byrne.
Granelli's son,
J. Anthony Granelli, played bass and served as musical director. In 2020, at nearly 80,
Granelli issued a pair of recordings: a reunion duo set with
Clayton for Sunnyside entitled
Alone Together and
Plays the Music of Vince Guaraldi & Mose Allison for RareNoise, with
Bradley Jones on bass and
Saft on piano.
Jerry Granelli died on July 20, 2021 at his home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada at the age of 80. ~ Thom Jurek