Jerry Granelli

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Customer reviews
Press release

4...according to our Brett on Thu 21 Oct, 2010.

This guy sounds pretty cool. Apparently he started off playing trad jazz before freeing that shit up, playing shows with Lenny Bruce and The Grateful Dead then getting into more and more 'fucking art gallery' stuff, as Dave, our very own patron of the avant-garde, might say. On this one he's totally free - free of the shackles of having other people in his band - for this is a SOLO drum record! Yet it's completely chock full of variety, from the quiet opening with its subtle reverberations which could easily pass for some sort of isolationist drone to the intriguing explorations of the potential of the kit for producing uncharacteristic sounds to the moments where he really gets his chops out with some full-on rhythmic insanity. An impressive listen from start to finish, even more so when you find out most of the pieces were recorded in one take!

Jerry Granelli has lived a mythic life. He drummed in some of the biggest jazz outfits of the 50s-60s, including Vince Guaraldi Trio and the Denny Zeitlin Trio. Like many of his peers, Granelli could have played it safe and made a comfortable career doing traditional jazz into his old age, but instead he dove into the new worlds of free and psychedelic music that were opening up around him during the hippie era in San Francisco. In the early 60’s he led one of the first free jazz bands in America. They did a three month opening spot for Lenny Bruce and toured extensively through Europe with the Grateful Dead, playing completely wild and spontaneous sets night after night, often to the scorn of unsuspecting audiences. A few years later he joined Light Sound Dimension (LSD), an outfit that paired marathons of free, amplified jazz with projection painting, effectively launching the first ever psychedelic light and sound event at the San Francisco Art Museum in 1967. LSD was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since those early years Jerry has played with an impressive list of innovators including Bruce Frisell, Ornette Coleman, Jamie Saft, and Anthony Braxton to name just a few. And at 70 he still travels the world playing and teaching new music.

Despite all his accomplishments, until we asked, Granelli had yet to make a solo drum record. For us it seemed fitting that after a life behind the kit, Jerry finally go it alone. No one, including Jerry, knew what to expect, but the results are remarkable. All the tracks on 1313 except one were played with no overdubs, and most were done in a single take. For those of us involved with documenting the session, it was a magical night. 1313 is dark, masterful, and bravely unique --- an outstanding new exploration of percussion and sound by a man who has been challenging himself musically for 60+ years. Here at DIVORCE we have never been more excited about a release. Engineered by Charles Austin. Produced by Charles Austin, Jerry Granelli, and Darcy Spidle. Mastered by Weasel Walter. Art by Yo Rodeo.

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