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• MUSIC REVIEW (Jazz) •

Jerry Granelli Music Has Its Way With Me Artist Home Page Check price at CDPlus.com

Label: Perimeter Released: 6/23/2001

If trying to describe the music on his own CD is a wacko task for Jerry Granelli, imagine how weird it would be for the average Joe. Is it jazz? Is it Hip-Hop? Is it anything? Good questions. Hard to find answers. Anything that contains elements of freebeat, sonic combustion, spoken words, free scratching, turntablist, and composing-in-flight-jams has to leave you with a “what in world…” feeling. Thankfully, Granelli doesn’t care. Instead, he simply takes his listener on a moment-by-moment journey. Whatever one might call his music, all Granelli asks is that you dance to it, listen to it, wonder about it, and eventually, just let the music have it’s way with you.

I have to admit I was initially drawn to this release because Halifax’s Buck65/Stinkin’ Rich is featured and I had hoped his fingerprints would be all over the disk. And, I wasn’t disappointed. Since this release Buck 65 has been quite busy, releasing Man Overboard and garnering compliments from none other than UK’s Radiohead. Canadians should be proud when a fellow Canuck helps the world realize that there’s more to Canada than hockey and good beer – and Buck65 does that.

Anyhow, back to Granelli’s disk. It is definitely not commercial, which is probably why I liked it. Plus, there is something unusually soothing about listening to a jazz drummer who once played with Hendrix jamming it out with his son and other East-coaters nearly 30 years younger. But make no mistake, this was done by design. The crew Granelli assembled has nothing to do with nepotism. This is simply the tightest, most talented thing coming out of Halifax. They make Sloan sound like fools. Another strong point concerns the material. It doesn’t take any steps to be accessible, which is a good thing. Its place of location is outside of today’s radio squeaky categorization of music. The music here transcends and essentially incorporates itself into a sound of defiance.

A few years back, I caught Jerry playing at Ottawa’s Mercury Lounge and ideas just rolled of him with the ease and grace of a tide coming in. For me, Granelli’s musical intelligence has always been there. What he’s improved on, with the addition of his Generation Next crew, is the delivery and the attitude. In many ways, this CD snares the vibe of Keith Richard’s Main Offender and Glowworm’s Sonic Watermelon. Music Has Its Way With Me is music that strays off the track, into the ditch and directly into the mud and that is the best place to be. Sorry but that’s as close to a cliché as Jerry comes to on this CD.

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