Jerry Granelli is a drummer with a decorated history of collaborations with icons over his six decade career. Here on The Jerry Granelli Trio Plays Vince Guaraldi & Mose Allison he teams with pianist Jamie Saft and bassist Bradley Christopher Jones to pay tribute to two of his favorite tenures with pianist Vince Guaraldi and singer/songwriter/pianist Mose Allison with the kind of contemporary twist you have come to expect from the label RareNoiseRecords. It is a pairing of an almost completely opposite style of playing – the smooth, elegant, lyrical stylings of Guaraldi and the eccentric, bluesy, at time obtuse style of Allison. Granelli played with Guaraldi for three years, including the landmark Peanuts television specials and had the honor of anchoring Allison’s band for nearly 40 years.
In Granelli’s opinion this is not so much a tribute as it is an opportunity for gifted, improvisational players to take good songs and give them a fresh sheen. They are not recreating but re-imagining. As the length of time with each would suggest, the album is mostly centered on Mose with Guaraldi’s two most famous songs serving as bookends. The opener “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” was a hit for Guaraldi that happened just before Granelli joined his new trio in the early ‘60s at the age of 21, right before a tour to capitalize on the hit. These were grueling tours and gigs that often led to late-night jam sessions, the spirit of which this recording attempts to capture. His tenure with Guaraldi included the acclaimed recordings with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete and the Peanuts soundtracks that are enduring favorites. Granelli’s whispering brushwork graces A Charlie Brown Christmas, which has become a holiday tradition and introduced generations of children to the sound of jazz. The immortal “Christmas Time Is Here” almost inevitably closes the album in gentle style, which may seem surprising given the experimental credentials of Saft and Jones, but it’s exactly that attentiveness to the moment that this trio shares that makes these renditions so powerful.
Granelli refers to the title of Nowness, his 2015 album with Saft, to explain the feeling of the trio. “You’re letting go of the past, you’re letting go of the present, and you’re just in the music. That’s the place you want to play from at all times. Then your whole vast experience is available to you and you can discover something new you’ve never played before. This record is a wonderful celebration of that coming together of now.” The same applies to Guaraldi’s other contributions to the album, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” and “Star Song.” Granelli recalls the latter piece as a favorite of Miles Davis, who would come to hear the Guaraldi trio night after night while they worked in Los Angeles.
Granelli joined Mose Allison’s trio in the mid-70s, in time to record the classic album Your Mind Is On Vacation during Allison’s period with Atlantic Records. They would continue to work together intermittently until Allison’s death in 2016. “We were great friends,” Granelli says fondly. “Mose was like the Charles Ives of the blues. He would take the blues as far out as he could, and he became one of the great influences in American songwriting.”
So, seven of the ten tracks here are related to Allison with the title track of Your Mind Is On Vacation serving as the centerpiece, carved into three parts. There are a pair of drum/bass duo preludes (“Mind Prelude 1” and “Mind Prelude 2)” each a stellar standalone piece on its own. The trio reimagines “Parchman Farm” through a Herbie Hancock soul-jazz lens, refracted into the raw power of the primal blues. Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go” spotlights the robust muscularity of Jones’ bass, while the satirical sting of “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy” resonates even without a word being sung. Other Jones highlights include his inventive bowed bass on “Young Man Blues” followed by a mind-blowing plucked solo on “Mind Prelude 2.” Of course, Saft, as pianist, is front and center throughout with his twisted, angular, unpredictable latter day Monk approach as leader Granelli just does his thing- deftly supporting when needed and stepping forward boldly on the breaks.
“Once music gets into my genetic system, I can remember exactly charts I played 50 years ago,” Granelli explains. “Mose’s words are incredible and I hear the lyrics, I hear the poetry, in my head as I play. That’s part of the jazz tradition: how do you play the same piece of music every night and make it fresh?”
It’s interesting to hear these Allison tunes without the vocals and words as these three musicians take them to almost barely unrecognizable territory in some of their excursions but always manage to bring back snippets of them to keep one grounded. This is the spirit that drives Granelli as he approaches his 80th birthday at the end of the year, the same way that it drove him to help create much of this music earlier in his life, and to find new details and sparks within it night after night throughout a truly incredible career. Kudos to his go forward anew approach. My guess is that you may never hear Guaraldi or Allison the same way after soaking this in.
One Response
Wonderful review, thank you!