A piano, a gentle drum shuffle, a children’s choir: The opening notes of A Charlie Brown Christmas, scoring a lightly falling snow, are not just familiar, they’re iconic. The 22-minute television special, which debuted in 1965, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, five decades worth of festive feeling, holiday transportation and warm nostalgia. JazzEast’s […]
Jerry Granelli
Posted inArts + Music
Review: Tales of A Charlie Brown Christmas
While the temperature dropped below freezing, and snowflakes danced atop Citadel Hill, a nearly sold out crowd gathered to warm their cockles at Spatz Theatre for The Halifax Jazz Festival presentation of Tales of A Charlie Brown Christmas, featuring the Jerry Granelli Trio and the Vivace Children’s Choir Sunday afternoon and evening. As the only […]
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Best Jazz Artist / Band
Gold Winner Jerry Granelli Silver Winner Gypsophilia Bronze Winner Jack’s Cats Jazz legend Jerry Granelli made everyone cry this year. Nostalgia is a force to be reckoned with, and a giant wave of it overtook the Spatz Theatre this December for JazzEast’s fundraising show–a live performance of A Charlie Brown Christmas with the Jerry Granelli […]
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Where To Play: 1313 Hollis
Jerry Granelli 1313 Hollis is a unique space in Halifax because its identity is so fluid. “Really, we’re just a rental space,” says Susan Hunter, who founded the spot in 2008 along with Jerry Granelli and John Siemens. It was originally set up to house Granelli’s Creative Music workshops and housed other JazzEast events. (The […]
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Sappyfest 2011, Day 3:
As the final day of this little festival commences, people recede into the shade under the only tree near the Town Bandstand where Toronto’s Lisa Bolzikovic begins quietly. The sky is intensely blue and the shade offers very little respite from the scorching sun. After a few sullen numbers unaccompanied, Bozikovic is backed by three […]
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Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project
Charles Spearin and the Happiness Project band The last night of the jazz festival featured the final of drummer Jerry Granelli’s four 70th-birthday shows and Toronto musician Charles Spearin’s The Happiness Project at St. Matthew’s. I caught the last few songs of the Jerry Granelli Trio’s (Granelli, Dani Oore, Simon Fisk), which were accompanied by […]
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Loo Loo Loo, Loo-Loo
cool dad This Sunday December 12, the CBC Radio 2 program Inside the Music will be airing a documentary called “Good Grief It’s Serendipity Vince Guaraldi: The Making of the Charlie Brown Christmas Album.” In the doc, legendary percussionist Jerry Granelli travels back to San Francisco and shares stories of playing on that legendary album, […]
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Jerry Granelli lets go
JJerry Granelli is a man in motion. During conversation, he moves constantly, pushing hands, lifting arms, craning neck, bending and straightening core behind his desk. While making 1313, his new solo drum/percussion/electronics record (named for the address of his office and an adjoining performance space), Granelli powered through the four-hour, one-night recording session back in […]
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Jazz Fest: The Kids Were All Right
The 2010 edition of the Halifax Jazz Festival melted away – almost literally – yesterday, ending more than a week of diverse and mostly enjoyable downtown sound. International and local artists alike stretched, and in some cases ignored entirely, the boundaries of the jazz genre, busting out everything from hip hop beats to tuba-powered Middle […]
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Jazz Fest review: V16
Stylishly boho in a loose-fitting dark, patterned shirt and soigne red scarf, Mister V16 himself stood behind a drum kit to address an anticipatory audience thronging the Festival Tent last night. Said Jerry Granelli, “We’re gonna play some music off our new CD (V16:Vancouver ’08)–a beat- and music we haven’t heard either.” Big laugh. Brandishing […]
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Burning questions for Granelli about Spontaneous Combustion
Last October, a reed-thin, restlessly imaginative, master percussionist approached the Atlantic Jazz Festival’s new artistic director Lulu Healy with a concept for a scintillating festival event. He proposed matching up musicians—all renowned for their musical jouissance (over-the-top enjoyment and pleasure), whiz-bang inventiveness and a no-self-doubt command of their instruments—to create music without preordained strictures. In […]