Jerry Granelli‘s first V16 record came out in 2003 (The V16 Project) with Anthony Cox on bass – though he never toured with the band – and with the current guitar team, the justly acclaimed slide virtuoso David Tronzo and the equally talented Christian Kögel, a former student of Jerry’s in Berlin and member of his previous two-guitar band UFB. This time round the music is even less classifiable, although Jerry noted that it “rocks out” but also that it represents “jazz as it can be in the 21st century….The material is plasma-like, always in flux and development. We all have these vast musical lives that we’ve led and that’s what we bring with us….The band offers such a rich sound palette, I think of everybody as sound artists rather than musicians.” (By the way, the steel sculpture that Jerry plays here was made for him by San Francisco artist Peter Englehart). Terms like “avant jamband” don’t really convey what’s going on; descriptions like “spacey ambient/improv/freeform roots’n’blues-cum-chamber jazz” are unwieldy. And partly beside the point – they identify some stylistic markers and approaches but not what makes things all hang together. Jerry’s son J. Anthony, who also produced the record, put it this way:

“We began to feel that instead of improvising around tunes we wanted to find a way to improvise within the tunes as a band. This is different than improvising on ‘solo’ changes or specific sections. The band became more interested in playing each tune as if we were a single entity, like a big eight-handed musician. In this way the fabric of each song could be stretched and changed as we felt in the moment. We wanted to play compositions that at the same time provided structure but could be deconstructed on the fly. We also started to use a kind of free counterpoint when we played….We are all very comfortable with the idea of using our instruments in a textural way. We approach our playing as if we are composing, but in real time, so this textural use of sound is very important to our process….Our only guideline is to try and convey meaning and depth in terms of the emotional qualities of the composition.” Jerry, who was part of Halifax’s Buddhist community for three decades, added:

“There seems for me anyway to be a couple of things about whether there are limits or how it works. One is giving up the idea of SELF-expression…and being more interested, willing to let the music lead the way. This is perhaps one’s primary skill as a spontaneous composer. And I think it takes years of practice – or better, doing – and the right players. That’s why this band is so close to my heart….The process of course involves both listening and responding, but the intention or motivation has to be serving the music, and enjoying the openness of the moment, so I guess there must be an element of fearlessness, and bravery…and trusting each other and the music.”

So we made this recording of the band over two nights at the Halifax studio The Sonic Temple, as part of the 2006 Atlantic Jazz Festival, and you hear the tunes as they went down, the same set list each night, unedited and in the order played: seven band originals and a James Brown cover played as a lyrical slow blues. Jerry: “There was a time when people went to clubs and heard a band 3 or 4 times in a week. They could hear the music grow and change, you could even hear ‘bad nights’ but there would always be something great. Now we seem to constantly search for perfection in music, rather than enjoying the process (nothing wrong with it being great music!). So we decided if we were going to do it, let’s let it be the way it happened.”

Jerry Granelli V16
Jerry Granelli, drums, steel sculpture
David Tronzo, electric slide guitar
Christian Kogel, electric guitar
J. Anthony Granelli, electric bass