[The following interview is transcribed from John Sekerka's radio show, Tape Hiss, which runs on CHUO FM in Ottawa, Canada. This month, John talks to one of Jazz's busiest and best drummers, Jerry Granelli, who has a credit sheet a mile long, but you probably know best as the drummer on The Peanuts Theme. Dig in.]

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Everyone's heard Jerry Granelli's drumming - it's the backbone of the timeless Peanuts Theme from the Vince Guaraldi Trio. He's also managed stints with Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden, as well as studio time with Sly Stone and Glen Cambpell. He also had the distinction of opening for Lenny Bruce (and a stripper) in the lean San Francisco years. In fact, there really isn't anything that Jerry Granelli hasn't done, and like the Energizer Bunny of jazz drumming, he just keeps on going. While most of his contemporaries have dropped off the face of the earth, play the lounges in Vegas or are relegated to embarrassing revival tours, Granelli boldly presses on, keeping his music current and vital as always. His latest project, "Music Has It's Way With Me" on Perimeter Records, is a collaboration with hot and slinky rap DJ Stinkin Rich.

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John: The latest record is brimming with sexy triphop beats. Where'd those come from?

Jerry: What can I say? Music has it's way with me. Some of 'em have been around for a long time: James Brown, Sly Stone ... and some of 'em come from Stinkin Rich.

John: Cruel parents. How did you hook up with Stinkin Rich anyway?

Jerry: We [as UFB] played a gig at a jazz festival here in Halifax and then we played at a club and Rich sat in. I had heard about him - he's a great improviser. Not many of the DJs I've met can improvise, or are interested in that. Colin Mackenzie of Perimeter Records is also a filmmaker and he did a short film on me, and he brought in Richie for that. So we did the film score together and became friends. All the guys in the band were here for an urban groove festival and it was fun. Colin wanted to record it and so we did. Rich is like another percussionist with a great rhythmic sense. In searching out material to spin and scratch, a lot of DJs have listened to music that I've been involved with for the past thirty or forty years. So we have the same roots. There's a lot in common.

John: Has Rich sampled the Peanuts theme?

Jerry: Naw, it's really hard to find on vinyl these days.

John: You've played with and opened up for a slew of greats. Can we talk about your illustrious past?

Jerry: Sure.

John: Let's start with Lenny Bruce. When was that?

Jerry: Let's see. When did they nominate Barry Goldwater for president? '63 I guess. I was in San Francisco playing free music with a trio. Everybody hated it, and everybody was pretty upset with Lenny in those days. A friend of mine owned a club and he put us together. Lenny and I became pretty good friends - we played together every night for three months. There's some tape somewhere of Lenny improvising with us, doing the same thing Rich is doing with words. He just became another horn. A lot of that time was pretty crazy, and not describable in any kind of media. That was just before he vanished to clean up. He'd been pretty much shut down at that point. San Francisco was the only place he could work. Lenny fought the battle of what is and isn't obscene - freedom of speech. There couldn't have been a Richard Pryor, or Public Enemy for that matter, without Lenny Bruce. Things were pretty conservative then and music was having the same revolutionary effect. We were playing that way. Ornette was playing that way. Trane ... It was demanding on audiences and the jazz club situation was changing from strictly entertainment.

John: The music adventure of those times sounds fantastic, but really, how did the audiences respond?

Jerry: Shocked! They were shocked. They didn't like it, they threw things at us.

John: Come tour and get pelted!

Jerry: Yes.

John: Who were some of the real innovators that you played with in those days?

Jerry: Charlie Haden, Denny Zeitlin, Dewey Redman, Ornette Coleman... I worked with pretty much everybody who came to San Francisco. I did a lot of records with Sly Stone.

John: Oh yeah? Which ones?

Jerry: Oh I don't even know man. We'd do a single, Sly would change his name and we'd go back in and do another one. There was a group called the We Five who had a big hit ["You Were On My Mind" - 1965]. I was just working all the time. That kinda switched into the San Francisco explosion; I ended up working at Bill Graham's first club The Matrix with the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & the Holding Company... We were playing free music. All the young musicians were hearing that music.

John: Did you do anything with the Grateful Dead?

Jerry: Yeah, they kept us as pets.

John: Pets?

Jerry: Yeah, they loved the free music so we played a lot at The Fillmore with them. Then we went to Europe on their first tour in 1971 (France), and had a magic mystery tour for several weeks (laughing). There's pieces of it I don't remember, man.

John: There were a lot of casualties - did you fall under any of those nasty addictive spells?

Jerry: Yes I fell under all of them. I did my duty. Coming out of be-bop ... it was part of it. It isn't anymore, and it doesn't have to be. I've led a miraculously healthy life, but there were a lot of people who didn't survive that.

John: Was there a big camaraderie in the jazz circles back in the sixties, or was it fiercely competitive?

Jerry: It was both. The history of the jam session was competitive, but there was a lot of camaraderie at the same time. Some nights you were the man. You were playing better than everybody else, and everyone knew that.

John: Were you checking out the other drummers like Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa?

Jerry: Oh yeah, as a kid I had heard all of them. By the sixties I was friends with Tony Williams ... but the older drummers like Philly Joe Jones were always kind to us, willing to let you hang out and copy 'em as much as you possibly could. A couple of weeks you'd sound like Philly Joe, a couple of weeks you'd sound like Elvin - whoever was in town at the time. San Francisco was incredibly rich at that time. It had about six big jazz clubs.

John: So when did you officially get started in the biz? When did you start to play?

Jerry: Oh my first performance, I was about eight. I played with my cousins and uncle. I played Italian weddings on accordion. By the time I was thirteen I was working professionally in swing bands. I loved jazz and when I heard Max Roach, that just about sealed my fate.

John: Was that the defining moment for you?

Jerry: Yeah, I'd heard Charlie Parker before that, but hearing Max Roach solo with Clifford Brown ... I guess I must have been fourteen when I heard this drum solo. I knew that was the sound I could hear in my head. It was melody. It wasn't like a "give the drummer some / set his hair on fire" drum solo. This was music. I didn't know how he did it. It took me about twenty years to figure it out. I knew that's what I wanted to do.

John: As a kid, were you walking around beating on things?

Jerry: Oh yeah, I was lucky. My dad was a drummer. My uncle was a drummer and my grandfather owned the house we lived in, so nobody could complain about the noise.

John: You're in Halifax now, coast to coast. How'd you wind up there?

Jerry: I came to Halifax a couple of times to teach, and I really loved it. In 1970 I became a Buddhist and was encouraged to move here. So in 1985 I did - became a Canadian citizen. The East coast has a tremendous tradition of music: Cape Breton, Cajun. It felt very much like home. I've started a school here: The Creative Music Workshop.

John: What is the impetus behind your work. Is there a driving force or is it just something you do every day?

Jerry: I think it's both. I try and work everyday: write or play. The rest is like serendipity: you meet somebody and form a relationship, and that happens very quick. A musical relationship just grows: maybe two or three or four projects with that person and your paths separate. I think it's a matter of being open to whatever's happening in your life. If I meet an interesting person like Richie, I'm curious and I'm challenged, and I'm gonna try and get into it.

John: A lot of people think hiphop to be a-musical.

Jerry: I can't accept that. If I do that then how can I call myself a musician or a sound artist? If I turn myself off. Frank West, the great saxophone player with Count Basie: we were playing once and he said, "you know man, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. I don't wanna hear no bad music." I don't care if it's Bonnie Raitt or Public Enemy. If it rings a bell and I go, "how'd they do that? How does Squarepusher make that sound with those machines? Man, can I play as fast as that machine?"

John: How'd you get that echo oil drum sound on the new record?

Jerry: It's a modulator we put in the drums. We treated it afterward.

John: Blasphemy!

Jerry: That was fun for me. A lot of people playing hiphop are using machines; they're treating the sound of the drums, which is somethin I love to do. Jamie Saft, the keyboard player, and Rich did a lot of the production: "Yeah that's a cool beat, let's put the drums over here and we can dub 'em into this reverb, and into this modulator and pick the snare out." And I'm like, "Yeah! Cool! Hell!"

John: That's surprising cuz a lot of players would object, "hey that's my drum, what're you doing with that?"

Jerry: Naw, I use different drums for different things. I've always treated it as a percussion section with all kinds of possibilities. I've played with synthesizers since the early seventies. I'm interested in the sound, and now through sampling you can get the sounds of old drums that they don't make anymore. That's fun for me. I think of myself as a sound artist first, a musician second and a drummer third.

John: Do you know how many records you've made, or played on?

Jerry: Aw, I dunno. There's some during that drugged out period that I don't remember. There must be hundreds. Someone comes up to me and asks, "didn't you do this record with the Kingston Trio?" And I say, "yeah, I guess I did man." Or Glen Campbell...

John: Come on, you did a record with Glen Campbell?

Jerry: Yup.

John: Which one was it?

Jerry: I dunno, man. I didn't really keep track of that.

John: You might be on "Wichita Lineman"!

Jerry: I don't think I was on the hit.

John: Ever run into Miles Davis in your travels?

Jerry: In my first conversation with Miles, he told me to shut up. It was wonderful. He probably saved me from saying some really embarrassing, stupid things. But he allowed me to stay around. He loved Vince Guaraldi and he came around every night when the trio was playing.

John: What's your wildest stage memory?

Jerry: The wildest was Elvin playing with Trane at the Jazz Workshop. All the young drummers would sit on the sides. Sometimes Elvin wouldn't come back from the intermission - he'd be getting a drink of water. Trane would pick one of us to be cannon fodder till Elvin came back. That was pretty staggering. I just made a bunch of sound. Working with Lenny was pretty wild too.

John: Was that with his stripper wife?

Jerry: She wasn't there at that point. It was Didi in the Shower - Topless Dancer, Lenny and us. Lenny and I walked around San Francisco all day. He'd go into tailor shops, order suits and never go back to pick them up.

John: With the Denny Zeitlin Trio, you were voted the best jazz group in 1965...

Jerry: We actually tied with Miles Davis Group. That trio with Denny, Charlie Haden and myself was a big deal at the time. Miles had Tony (Williams), Herbie (Hancock) and those guys. They turned out to be important records. I was twenty-four or twenty-five, and I got to experience all my dreams, and it was really scary.

John: So what's left? You've done it all.

Jerry: Vince Guaraldi was asked, now that you've had a hit record, do you feel like you've sold out?" He said, "naw, I've bought in." I have several projects on the go: two records with this group called Badlands out on Songline Records, UFB - I still wanna keep working on, I'm doing duet with a bass clarinet player. I'm teaching. I'm sober. I'm clean. If I sound excited I am. I'm curious to see what comes next. There's always a panic that nothing will come, but that's healthy. I think art is a path. I feel lucky to have been involved in that lineage.


....tape hiss....


(C) 2000 - John Sekerka