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J. A. Granelli
J. Anthony Granelli is a native of northern California. He began to study bass at age eight with bassist and musical instrument pioneer Fred Marshall. In his teens Granelli moved to Seattle Washington where he performed with Jay Clayton, Julian Priester and Jerry Granelli while studying at Cornish College of the Arts.
Granelli received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1991. At Cal Arts he explored creating a personal vocabulary of improvisation while studying with Charlie Haden and performing with John Bergamo and Miroslav Tadic.
After moving to Brooklyn New York in 1992 Granelli was very active in the scene that flourished around the Knitting Factory. While in New York he was a founder/ assistant director with Ralph Alessi of the School for Improvised Music an internationally attended program that runs during the summer. Granelli also helped to found and is assistant director of Jerry Granelli’s Creative Music Workshop in Halifax Nova Scotia, which just celebrated it’s twentieth anniversary in 2016. In 2006 Granelli earned a Masters Degree in Jazz Composition from New York University.
In 2000 Granelli started Love Slave Records which released nine critically acclaimed records by his own bands as well as other “downtown” musical luminaries. J. Anthony has been covered in all major Jazz publications as well as various local media outlets. Granelli’s composition “Fortunate Son” plays regularly on NPR as interstitial music. He also composed music for the Fox Searchlight motion picture “Super Troupers” with New York alt Americana star Jack Grace.
J Anthony continues to compose and play in New York City and internationally. He currently leads his own Mr. Lucky Trio as well as Jazz/Reggae band the Gowanus Reggae and Ska Society and plays with numerous local projects. In 2013 Granelli formed the “Shining Clouds of Joy” duo project with Canadian bassist Simon Fiske. In 2014 Granelli was the musical director and arranger for the “Love Love” project with Julian Priester. “Love Love” was performed at the Atlantic Jazz Festival and marked the first time the iconic record was played live in the forty years since its recording. 2016 saw the reuniting of Jerry Granelli’s “Sandhills Reunion” project featuring Rinde Eckert for which J Anthony is musical director.
J Anthony is very pleased to be the musical director on Jerry Granelli’s “Dance Hall” record featuring Bill Frisell and Robben Ford which was released in 2017. The Dance Hall Band toured Canadian and U.S. festivals in the summer of 2018 and featured Robben Ford and Bob Lanzetti on guitars.
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J.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: Homing
by Matt Cibula
J.A. Granelli is a bassist of great subtlety; his backing band, Mr. Lucky, is small and versatile. This album contains nine pieces that range from alt.countrified jazz (or jazzified alt.country, not quite sure there) to New Orleans-ish funky-esque strut to straight-ahead blues-ish atmospherical soft-leaning fusiony I-don't-know-what.
As you can tell, it's kinda hard to categorize. I would not be surprised to find some Bill Frisell in Granelli's CD collection; but I'd also anticipate some Grateful Dead, some Mark Knopfler, a ...
Continue ReadingJ.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: Homing
by John Kelman
Bassist J.A. Granelli's Mr. Lucky may be a totally revamped lineup from the group that released Gigantic (Love Slave, 2004), but its philosophy remains the same. Homing lives in a place somewhere between Ry Cooder's loose, pre-Buena Vista Social Club work and Bill Frisell's Good Dog, Happy Man, a collection of roots-oriented material that's about groove and a collective sound more than any one person's contribution. Still, while the album has nothing to do with overt virtuosity, its emotional honesty ...
Continue ReadingJ.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: Gigantic
by Dan McClenaghan
The words “surf's up" keep coming to mind when I listen to bassist J.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky's Gigantic. Though it may seem an odd comparison, the music here has that rough-around-the-edges groove mode of long ago guitar/organ-based surf music, a very early sixties (pre-Beatles) Southern California type of garage rock. These minor hit records from regional instrumental groups served as soundtracks for 8mm surf documentary movie makers who traveled from high school gym to local community centers with their ...
Continue ReadingJ.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: Gigantic
by Jerry D'Souza
The music that J.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky make has nothing to do with jazz. That does not matter, for they serve up dollops of music that tantalizes and captivates even in the quietest moments.
Granelli balances the structure of the album very well as he brings in different moods to keep the snare secure. One of the most beautiful tunes is the title track on which he plays the piccolo bass and David Tronzo cuts a deep ...
Continue ReadingJ.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: Gigantic
by Michael P. Gladstone
This is not going to be an album for everyone, but here are some potential candidates: listeners who feel that smooth jazz is too limited and without any real pulse rockers who are tired of the same old licks and Top 40 syndrome the disenchanted who yearn for music that's better suited than mainstream jazz for parties musical adventurers who pride themselves on always looking beyond the obvious and wish to explore some fresh, cutting edge music.
Continue ReadingJ.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: Gigantic
by John Kelman
What is jazz? Does anyone know anymore? When Bill Frisell won Downbeat's Album of the Year award a few years back for Nashville--an album that was long on Americana and bluegrass and, at least on initial inspection, short on the things that most people tended to associate with jazz--the landscape had clearly changed.
And that's not a bad thing. What really defines jazz is the improvisational spirit; not just someone soloing over a band mind you, but a ...
Continue ReadingJ.A. Granelli and Mr. Lucky: El Oh El Ay
by Glenn Astarita
Here's a concisely arranged, quaint and slightly off-kilter effort from a crew of New York City musicians who generally shun the straight and narrow. Organist Jamie Shaft commences the opener, “Whatever Lola Wants," with an eerie, low-pitched groove followed by David Tronzo's wily slide guitar ruminations. The band continues to meld laid back, funk vibes with country blues and rock backbeats on many of these works. Saft's haunting organ motif serves as the underpinning for Tronzo's dreamy guitar and the ...
Continue ReadingDrummer Jerry Granelli Reunites with Guitar Greats Bill Frisell & Robben Ford After 25 Years for Blues-Soaked Repertoire on "Dance Hall"
Source:
DL Media
Back in 1992, veteran drummer-composer Jerry Granelli went to studios in Seattle and San Francisco with an all-star cast, including trombonist Julian Priester, alto sax great Kenny Garrett, bassist Anthony Cox and guitarists Bill Frisell and Robben Ford, to record a set of blues-based tunes that resonated with his youth. The resulting album, A Song I Thought I Heard Buddy Sing, inspired by Michael Ondaatje's haunting novel “Coming Through Slaughter" about the life of the legendary New Orleans cornetist Buddy ...
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Jerry Granelli Holds A One-Week Residency At John Zorn's The Stone On January 3-8, 2017
Source:
Scott Thompson Public Relations
Born in 1940, and now in his late 70s , Drummer / Composer / Professor / Sound Painter Jerry Granelli has enjoyed an incomparable career in music from the inside out... way out! The winner of the last NEA Grant awarded ascended from playing with the great pianist Vince Guaraldi at the height of his popularity while simultaneously exploring Free Jazz on San Francisco's thriving after hours sets in the early `60s to establishing academic arts curriculums to indoctrinate and ...
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Jerry Granelli Trio’s Debut CD, "Let Go," Is The Latest Gem In Percussion Master’s Multi-faceted Career
Source:
Cary Goldberg
“Let go of what you want it to be. let go of how you think it too should be. even let go of your vision.and so we began by bringing in compositions and tearing them apart to find out what worked. This recording is a crystallization of that process.” In the middle of 2011, after releasing the first ever solo recording of his extensive career (2010’s 1313 on Divorce Records), critically acclaimed drummer Jerry Granelli opted to explore the trio ...
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Jerry Granelli Trio - Let Go (2011)
Source:
Something Else!
verytime I've examined a Jerry Granelli record, like Song I Thought I Heard Buddy Sing or News From The Street, I've marveled at how a guy who drummed for all those Charlie Brown children's TV specials with Vince Guaraldi ended up being such a creative risktaker as a leader. At the same time, I think it's a crime he doesn't get enough due for his daring and just damned good drumming. Jerry's always trying something new and this time he's ...
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"G.R.A.S.S. On Fire" A Jazz-Fueled Take on Seminal Bob Marley Album
Source:
GoMedia PR
Eleven Musicians of the Gowanus Reggae and Ska Society Instrumentally Interpret Music from Catch a Fire With the release of G.R.A.S.S. on Fire, G.R.A.S.S—the appropriately abbreviated Gowanus Reggae and Ska Society—have taken on the challenge of bringing the music of the legendary Bob Marley and the Wailers to an entirely new level. On G.R.A.S.S. on Fire, this collection of eleven intrepid musician/explorers “dedicated to bringing the sounds of classic Ska and Reggae to the fine people of Brooklyn and beyond," ...
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Drummer Jerry Granelli Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
It's easy to mention drummer Jerry Granelli's accomplishments, but hard to really make clear his importance, or the way he's continuously, over forty years, been at the forefront of most of the innovations and new movements in jazz music.
From working with Vince Guaraldi and Denny Zeitlin in the San Francisco area in the 1960s to his own broad-reaching discography with groups including UFB and V16 (not to mention his outstanding Sandhills Reunion Project), Granelli has followed his muse from ...
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Jay Clayton/Jane Ira Bloom/Jerry Granelli Bowery Poetry Club Saturday, March 18, 2PM
Source:
All About Jazz
Saturday March 18, 2PM “OUTSKIRTS" Jay Clayton - voice/electronics Jane Ira Bloom - sax/electronics Jerry Granelli - drums/electronics Performing LINES AND SPACES/ A Dream Suite by Jay Clayton created with support from Chamber Music America's New Works :Creation and Presentation Program, funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery (1st & Bleeker) 212-614-0505 Modern vocalist Jay Clayton, soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and ...
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Music
Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson
J. A. Granelli
Location: New York City
Instrument: Bass
Born: July 7, 1966
