Jerry Granelli and Badlands

Enter, a Dragon

“If quality was the only criterion, Granelli’s small, select output would have earned him a place among the leading contemporary jazz players…Comparisons have been made with Paul Motian for subtlety and sensitivity, but Motian hasn’t attempted anything as ambitious as Granelli’s compositions.”

— Andy Hamilton, The Wire

Enter, A Dragon is the first record of Jerry Granelli’s Badlands, his New York dream band chock full of the young lions of the downtown scene. And at the helm of his kit with its array of acoustic percussion, Jerry focuses the energy into an ebb and flow, as written ensemble passages alternate with solos, duos and collective improvisation. The group plays original compositions by Jerry and its members, and the range of influences is predictably wide: the whole history of jazz, from New Orleans heterophony to Ellington, Mingus, Ornette, modal and free; 20th century classical and contemporary experimental; funk and lounge-core; eastern European folk; middle-eastern, Indian and Tibetan music. The record is organized into suites of tunes that incorporate improvised duets between Jerry and each band member; it’s a disc of wit and subtlety, of gathering and release. As Jerry writes in the notes: “Badlands: the name comes from the place; a raw and exquisite landscape, unpredictable, landscapes of sound and song. The music is based on this feeling of space and spontaneity…From the very first concert there seemed to be a strange and lovely chemistry.”

Born in San Francisco, Jerry Granelli studied with Joe Morello and first gained jazz recognition in Vince Guaraldi’s and Denny Zeitlin’s trios, but he was also playing free jazz by 1963 and world/jazz fusion in the late ’60s. Inspired by Tibetan Buddhism, he moved to Boulder in 1976 to establish the Naropa Institute’s music department, which he co-directed until 1980 when he took a teaching position at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts. In 1987 he became director of the department of jazz and popular music at the Canadian Conservatory of Music in Halifax, and he also holds a professorship at Berlin’s Hochschule der Künste. From 1980 to 1983 he performed in a trio with Ralph Towner and Gary Peacock, then decided to step out front, recording for ITM: Koputai, One Day at a Time, Forces of Flight (co-led with Glen Moore and vocalist Annie Wilson), and in 1993 A Song I Thought I Heard Buddy Sing, featuring Bill Frisell, Robben Ford, and Kenny Garrett (now on Evidence). For Intuition he recorded Another Place (1994) with Jane Ira Bloom, Julian Priester, Anthony Cox, and David Friedman, and News from the Street (1995) and Broken Circle (1997), both with his Berlin two-guitar band UFB. He has had long associations with Mose Allison and with Jay Clayton (Sound Songs, ITM; co-leader), and in the ’90s has worked with Jane Ira Bloom and in a trio with Cox and Friedman; he has also performed with many other jazz greats, including Ornette Coleman, Art Farmer, Joe Henderson, Dave Holland, Jackie McLean and Dewey Redman.

Chris Speed leads his quartet Yeah No (Songlines) and co-leads Pachora (Knitting Factory) and Human Feel (Songlines, New World and GM). He performs/records with Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, Dave Douglas’s Sanctuary and sextet, Myra Melford’s The Same River, Twice, Erik Friedlander’s Chimera, Mark Dresser, Ben Perowsky, and Briggan Krauss’s Good Kitty, and has recorded with John Zorn (Bar Kokhba and Burt Bacharach), Michael Formanek, Orange Then Blue, Mitchell Froom, and Ron Sexsmith.

Peter Epstein leads his own Quartet (Staring at the Sun and the Invisible, M•A, and has released a solo saxophone disc (Solus), a project with Mark Feldman and Ralph Alessi (Idée Fixe), and duos with Miroslav Tadic (Without Words), and Marcelo Zarvos (Dualism, all on M•A Recordings). He co-leads Tronzo Granelli Epstein (Crunch, Love Slave), and a trio with Alessi and Michael Cain (Phfew, M•A, and Circa, ECM). He performs/records with Brad Shepik and the Commuters (Songlines) and Ralph Alessi’s Modular Theatre, performs with Bobby Previte’s Weather Clear, Track Fast and The Horse, and has recorded with James Carney and Pete McCann.

Briggan Krauss leads his own projects Good Kitty and 300 (both on Knitting Factory), and performs/records with the collectives BABKAS (Songlines) and The Resonance Impeders (CIMP), Wayne Horvitz’s Pig Pen, Steven Bernstein’s Sex Mob, Andrea Parkins’ Trio, Myth Science, The Jay Clayton Project, The Satoko Fuji Orchestra, The Pink Noise Saxophone Quartet, and Lard Dog and the Band of Shy.

Curtis Hasselbring leads several bands, composes chamber music, has toured and recorded with The Jazz Passengers, Bobby Previte’s Weather Clear, Track Fast, Medeski, Martin & Wood, The Either/Orchestra, and Orange Then Blue/Gunther Schuller, and recorded with Benny Carter, Ken Schaphorst, and Brian Ales.

Jamie Saft co-leads Saft/Vu (Avant), and has performed and/or recorded with Bobby Previte’s Latin for Travellers and Weather Clear, Track Fast, John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Joe Maneri, Joe Morris, the Peter Epstein Quartet, Elysian Fields, JoJo Mayer, Orange Then Blue, Holly Palmer, Nerve, Boomish, Chocolate Genius, Groove Collective and Marc Ribot. He was featured piano soloist in the New York and Paris premieres of John Adams’ opera Ceiling/Sky.

Jerry’s son J. Anthony Granelli leads Spanky (featuring Krauss), co-leads Tronzo Granelli Epstein and EZ Pour Spout (with Krauss, Hasselbring, Saft and John Mettam), both of which he has recorded for his label Love Slave, and has performed with Joe Gallant’s Phill Zone and recorded and toured with the Buddy Bolden Band.

“Not since his brilliant 1992 record A Song I Thought I Heard Buddy Sing, has Granelli written with such rhythmic invention, seemingly carved out of the air that his sticks stir and reconstitute as liquid time and solid swing. Starring a young set of extremely bad-ass New Yorkers, Enter, a Dragon is an experiment in ensemble playing in great wide-open constructs with a strong, arching backbone.” — Spike Taylor, Exclaim!

****1/2 “Granelli follows his own muse, with an eclecticism that combines an array of styles…[He] mixes offbeat compositions with scintillating solos for each of the fifteen tracks…Moods change with the drop of a coin, yet there is a coherent quality to it all that draws the listener into a magical world where just about anything goes.” — Steven A Loewy, Allmusic.com