Ideas - Jazz fan or not, you've probably heard this musician play

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

If you think you've never heard Jerry Granelli play drums — you likely have. Think of a comic strip holiday special and an iconic soundtrack: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Jerry was 22 years old when he became a member of the Vince Guaraldi Trio, the jazz band behind the popular 1965 album. His long career was legendary, accompanying many of the greats like Mose Alison, Sly Stone and The Grateful Dead. Producer Mary Lynk was lucky to meet with Jerry on the eve of his 80th birthday for a wide-ranging conversation. The gifted composer and jazz giant died in Halifax in 2021. *This episode originally aired on December 21, 2020.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. If you listen to Vince Goraldi records, you know, I've never played that simple in my life. Deceivingly simple, though, right? Yeah, it's, boy, that's my heart. People go, oh, you know, because they know the Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Christmas time is here, the brushwork for people has meant a lot. And they go, how do you do that?

And I honestly say, I just pour my heart and soul, all my emotions, everything I have into making me circles on the drum head. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyed. Today, the world-renowned drummer, Jerry Grinelli. Here he is, late December 2020, on the eve of his 80th birthday and the 50th. 5th anniversary of creating and playing the drum part for a Charlie Brown Christmas. Christmas time is here. So I'm picking a point as a point right here where the tempo is. Like bumble two, three, one, two. So I'm trying to just find this little point to push.

But it's all internal. Jerry Grinelli was the last surviving member of the Vince Garaldi Tria, who played on that iconic album. Born into a storied time of jazz in San Francisco, he was a drumming prodigy. While other kids were playing ball, he was practicing five hours a day on the drums. At night, when those same kids were tucked in bed, at the tender age of six, he started hanging out at jazz clubs with his father and uncle, listening to Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, among other greats.

When he was 22, Vince Goraldi, already famous, invited Jerry to become a member of his trio. But after two and a half years, he left to explore free jazz and spontaneous composition. He hung up with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Max Roach, Jimmy Hendrix, played on albums with Sly Stone, the Kingston trio, and Moes Allison. toured alongside the Grateful Dead, taught with Allen Ginsberg and opened for Lenny Bruce, and was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for pioneering psychedelic music. Up until COVID, Grinnelly had been teaching drumming

and touring around the world. Since 1987, he had recorded 25 of his own albums. But for 50 years, he refused to play the songs from a Charlie Brown Christmas, refused to be defined by it. A few years ago, he was finally ready to play the music again. Since the late 1980s, Jerry Grinnelly, a devoted Buddhist, had been living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was there that he sat down with Ideas producer Mary Link. Jerry?

Yes, Mary. Thank you for this. Thank you. I'm delighted. I really am. I'm delighted to be with you. We first aired this program, Ordinary. Magic, the musical genius of Jerry Grinnelli in late December 2020. Sadly, six months later, on July 20th, 2021, Jerry Grinnelly passed away. We're re-airing the episode in celebration of this remarkable and utterly delightful artist.

Jerry, I'm curious because on my computer, I have a quote, and it's from Miles Davis. and it's on a little yellow sticky paper, and it's that famous one who he says that sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself. Oh, it takes forever to sound like yourself. And you're going to be in a week's time? 80. 80.

Yeah. How long did it take to sound like yourself? Well, that's great, you know, because I know everything I've stole from all those great masters, and I guess it began to dawn on me. And what happened was one night, the Trident and Socelo, I guess this would be the moment. And I was playing with my quartet, and I already had been through Vince and all that.

So I had a good rep. People knew who I was. And three of the great American drummers came in that night. All good friends, all had taught me. Elvin Jones, drummer with John Coltrane. Papa Joe Jones goes back to Count Basie considered one of the roots of our drumming technique and Joe Morello

who was a drummer with Dave Brubach who was my personal mentor and dearest friend our whole lives and they come in and they sit in the front row the guys in the band didn't tell me but I saw them out from the back and all I could say to myself

Well, I said, well, here it is. You know, they know everything you've stolen from them. So you better go out there and be yourself. And I did. I was able to. And they were wonderful. It was like... Did it change that night and how you played because of that?

No, I think the confidence changed. The realization then that I did have a way that I felt about it. I wasn't searching. And it was like being brought in. given a seat at the table they treated me like an equal now they had oh I saw now that they

had treated me a long time like that but I felt it because unless you know it it doesn't matter right it doesn't matter but how does it how does your music didn't change how does your confidence impact the music how did that

how did that you how did that impact your music then you're playing I think it it allows you to relax and to take some chances and not to pretend you're trying to be something else. I hear it different. I just hear it different. Part of it's being dyslexic, probably. I hear it different.

Sometimes I can't find out where one is. Sometimes I'm listening to a radio in the car or something. You know what's going like, boom, bap, boom. I mean, that's simple, right? I can't figure out, it sounds complicated to me. Wow. My mind flips it around and I hear all kinds of wonderful things. And then I go, you're doing it again.

But I just hear it that way. And now people hear a record and I'm delighted that they know it's me. You know, think about it. If you put a seed in the ground, it takes a lot of water before you get a tree. So why should you wake up one day and find your voice? Yeah. You have to find your voice and you have to sound like somebody else. you know, Miles Davis spent a lot of time trying to sound like Dizzy Gillespie.

No way, he doesn't have those kinds of chops. But he's the, you can be the best, I can be the best Jerry Grinnelly, the most honest Jerry Grinnelly in the world. And that's, I have to be happy with that. At the same time, always torturing myself, striving to get better, striving perfection. But that's my own work. Are you still striving for perfection right now at 80? because you still practice all the time.

Yeah, last week, I had to keep from setting fire to my drums. It was just so really terrible, really terrible. You mean, oh, I thought you meant musically. You were just frustrated and you wanted to set fire to your drums? Yeah, really. I went down and I was like, okay, I'm going down. Everybody who knows me, they go, what are you doing? I said, I'm going down to face my drums.

I haven't touched them for a week and a half and two weeks. And your drums are in the basement downstairs. Yeah, from your condo. And so I went down there and I started to do. these simple, just technical things. I'm 80. So now I just want, I'm never going to be like, you know, I can listen to a record when I'm 24 and I'm not going back there.

Well, there's a huge physicality too. Yeah. So I can keep myself really good shape and be pretty amazing as an 80-year-old guy doing what I'm doing. And it's part of it is the connection between me and the instrument. Morella once told me, when you put a drumstick in your hand, your hand no longer ends there. It comes out to the end of the drumstick now.

When you hit the drum, you are now connected to the drum. So it's all one loop. So I couldn't find that. It was too stiff. It was too hard. It wasn't even. I didn't have control of the instrument.

I couldn't make love to it. It wouldn't give me a sound. It was torturous. Is that the first time? No, it happens if I leave it alone now for a while. But, you know, given the COVID, given the isolation, given everything else I was working with in my mind, you know, I went down there looking for salvation.

And John said, oh, no, no, no, man. You know, you don't get to use me like that. Were you scared that might be it? No, no, no. I knew I could do it. I know now at this point I can do it. So I knew I could get it back. I knew I can get it back, you know.

And it's only four days. It takes me four days, and then I go down and I go, ah, it sounds like me. What do you think is the obstruction then? It's my mind, but it's also very, because I have left it alone at this point. I'm old, you know, these muscles are very happy. when they're playing because they've been doing that. But I have to just pay my dues. I have to pay, I have to do very strict things.

And I'm not practicing music at all. I'm practicing, I'm repairing the instrument. That's what I'm doing. You know, trying to get things that are not natural, you know, setting a metronome at a certain tempo and then making these slow, painful strokes so you can't hear the metronome. That's really hard because human beings are not machines.

But you're striving, which means I then have control. And that's all I want. Morello said there's no reason to have technical skill on your instrument, except so the music never meets a blockage. Isn't that beautiful? Hey Jerry, tell us where we are right now. We're in the concrete box. If you're going to play the drums and you want to play the drums,

you always have to find a place where people aren't going to yell at you. And this is a concrete box in the basement. So the apartment building where you live in, they said to you, Jerry, you've got a room. Yeah, she said, we don't want you to leave the building. And I said, okay. So I just have this space. and the manager shares it.

He keeps it neater than I do. And I have the drums, and I can rehearse and come down here and play, face these every day if I want to when I'm home. And this is how I've spent my life, locked up in little rooms. Here they are. These are a beautiful instrument.

Do you know a friend of mine was playing in a famous rock band and he was doing really well, but I remember him telling me that his arm was going, one of his arms, and he wouldn't tell anybody in the band. He was just petrified. Oh, yeah. Well, that's the beauty of Morello system, is that it's yoga. It's all about how this is a membrane,

so it's designed without me doing anything. See how it bounces back? So my job is then to keep tension out of that. Even if I'm playing loud, I'm never creating tension. Because Joe was great. He said, if you're playing properly, the drum is ringing, this is ringing, the stick, because it's hollow, and then your bones are ringing. So the whole thing is set in motion, and that's why you make a sound. So maybe my friend who was playing the rock band was not doing that. When people play with tension, they force it. I mean, at this age, you know, just this,

that's pretty fast for my age and strength to be able to do. The poet Mary Oliver said that rhythm is one of the most powerful pleasures. And how does it affect you? I can be deeply touched by it and I also at this point of my life can be affected and I can hear that it's not real that people are just doing it it's like somebody just applying mathematics

with no soul to it, no heart to it, no humanness to it and therefore it doesn't matter how loud it is you can hear somebody with 12 amplifiers and they're banging away and you don't want to move. You don't necessarily feel that. But you go down and you hear one little guy going,

ding, ding, ding, ding, and you suddenly start to move. It connects or reconnects people or helps people to acknowledge the connection. So it affects me. I love it. I'm always playing time, as we call it, or I call it. You know, it's like I'm playing time. I've learned how to abstract that. so it's like ocus pocus you know i'm making you pay attention here while something else is subtly

happening over here wow so we were just talking about miles and i i know that he used to come here you play when you were in vince's trio and his favorite song which you just recently recorded Star Song. Star Song. And take me back to your early 20s, a drumming and Prodigy playing in the Vince Goraldi trio in San Francisco, and Miles would come into the club and ask for that song. Miles loved the trio, so he would come around whenever he was in San Francisco

and the trio was around. And the jazz police, you know, they kind of resented the fact. They always thought that Vince sold out because that trio was. Very popular, but it wasn't. It really wasn't. Miles came every night, and he loved star song. Miles would always ask for that. What is it about the song, do you think?

It's a beautiful song. It's melodic and it just catches a moment. It's a beautiful melody. I don't know what makes a great song, but it's sweet. And it just got it because Miles is a melodic person. Here you were such a young, I mean, yes, you're a prodigy, but still, you know, Miles Davis is coming to hear you play. Yeah, I had been around Miles because he came to the Black Hawk. Those days, bands came for two weeks. So you got to hear Miles Davis with John Coltrane.

That famous, famous band, I got to go there at 18, 19 years old and listen. Guido, who owned it, would let us. us, young musicians who had some promise maybe who were out on the scene trying to play. And there was a group of us. And you could stand back by the bar, at the corner of the bar, this dark room. And I remember it was like he had cloth on the walls, you know. And Miles would come back. He would play a solo.

And people gave him a lot of crap for playing a solo and getting off the bandstand. And he would come back and order a drink, get it there, a little brandy or something. There was a beautiful woman there, Miles was going to be talking to her, you know, real low and everything. So I figured Miles had seen me. He knew who I was. And I just, John Coltrane's playing a solo. So I, all of my courage in the world, I sum it up, and I go, my best, jazz hip thing. I go, hey Miles, and he goes, shut up.

That was my first and later I realized what an important teaching that was. Because I watched Miles very carefully after that. He left the bandstand because he knew as long as he was on the bandstand everybody was watching him. I mean, he was so authentic and charismatic.

And they wouldn't listen to John Coltrane. and when I watched him he would sit there and he'd be talking had the trumpet on the bar be talking to this woman drinking this drink and you could hear that John Coltrane solo was finishing and he would

pick up the trumpet mid-sentence and get up on the bandstand and coming in the right place my little brain goes aha he never leaves the music he's always in it

whether you're playing you're not playing you're always involved in it it's not you don't go he doesn't go there and become suddenly hip you know and then it was great it was a wonderful lesson like shut up who are you

to be talking while this genius is playing Elvis said that you are either born with rhythm or you aren't. No, that's not true. I would disagree. I think every human being has it.

Every human being can make music and everybody human being has rhythm. But whether you're trained in expressing it, whether you like the science of it, while you're fascinated by it, you know, as I am, you know, I'm fascinated because I go outside and I can hear rain and I put it in my brain which is not what I teach my students I can convert it into three against four so I'll hear tak taketeketak raindrops

I'll organize it right and I've had to learn to unorganize it to hear cycles which are bigger and how the world actually works you know like seasons but I think you're either fascinating what do you mean you can hear seasons well you can you can hear cycles

When you start to, when you delve into the higher mathematics of what we do, right? You start to realize that nothing's independent. Everything is connected. If you go outside and you can see, if you look properly and you calm and you sink down to the listening exercise, the way that I teach, you can actually hear the birds going and the squirrel going and leaf cracking, and they're not opposed to each other. They're not polyrhythmic. If you listen to long enough, there is a resolution. It's like the cycle comes together, you know, but you have to really pay attention a long time. To me, that's the way I play. I try

to play from there. you're playing improvisational jazz, how do you know when to end? You have to pay attention, right? It's, it's, jazz is improvisational, but life is always, I'm always telling people, jazz is just an organized version of life. Life is, we're totally improvising all the time as human beings. And a good day we have the least amount of habitual patterns so we're completely spontaneous.

So jazz is really spontaneously composing in the way that we went where we, once we went past bebop, not past in a negative sense, but once we evolved, we began to say, why do we need predetermined forms?

What have we learned from playing so many predetermined forms? And we started to start playing, like just you sit down, I sit down, and we start. And every sound is equal. And you watch your mind organize it into a composition. But how do three or four jazz musicians playing together end something? Because they're all paying attention. And the rule is that you're not listening.

Here's the whole thing. Everybody goes, well, it's like, I get really mad. They go, well, jazz is a conversation. And I go, no, it's not a conversation. A conversation is what we're having. I'm speaking, you're listening. You're speaking, I'm listening. It's a dialogue.

We're all speaking at once, including silence. And what I'm listening to, what I've trained to listen to, is not I hear what I play, which is mindfulness, back to Buddhism, and then I hear the whole. whole that's awareness there has to be the art has to have mindfulness and awareness in it at all times so i'm i'm it's a goal too i'm setting out to make a composition the difference is i don't know what the composition is but i'll discover along the way so you can be say three people playing say your trio and then you don't say it's going to be you don't say in your head or your feelings and it's six minutes or it's three minutes.

Mm-hmm. Or do you? You just... You can, because you're free, but yeah. No, we can just walk in, sit down and play. And the ending will come naturally because of... It will have an ending, yes, and I have to recognize that. Who determines the ending?

The music. Not one individual. Shouldn't be. One individual can key it by what they play, set it up, or play something. But that all goes under the heading of the music. music. The music, this is a different approach, and it's not because I learned it from these people who went before me. I think they were responsible to the music. The music determines it. The piece, the composition. Vivaldi, that piece, he knew when that piece was done. He didn't arbitrarily decide, I got to go to dinner. The piece is done. I'm done with this piece. Painting. a drawing, you know, when you know you're done. If you go further, you make a mess, or you're making another drawing.

And it's training yourself to be, it all comes down to training. It's training yourself and dedicating to yourself that, it's like a great conversation. If we're talking, seeking truth, we're not arguing. There's a tremendous passion, but we know when we found it. That's beyond my little reference point. It makes sense. It's like Miles knew when his solo was over. And if I was playing with him, quote, quote, accompanying him, which I wasn't,

or I knew too, because we're both listening to the same thing. And you're listening to a conversation with the world-renowned jazz drummer Jerry Grinnell. Jerry passed away in July 2021, six months after this interview. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough.

Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at Lovescarborough.ca.a. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters, Canada's comedy competition judged by live audience applause. This week's episode asks if children are smarter than their parents. So tune in to find out who wears the smarty pants in their families wherever you get your podcasts. View was originally broadcast. This is Ideas. I'm Nala Ayyed. Let's return to Jerry Grinelli, speaking.

in December 2020 to Ideas producer Mary Link at his home in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Jerry, you were born in San Francisco at an incredibly, it was a rich musical scene, a gazillion jazz clubs, jazz greats, a rich culture. Take me back 80 years into the world that you were born into in 1940, San Francisco. 1940, San Francisco.

So sometimes it comes back as like wooden buildings and colors and that neighborhood. And I was the first generation. I've often felt very bad for my grandfather, you know, who came from Italy. And I'm the first generation in this country. And a poor guy gets a jazz drummer, you know. So I really felt bad for him. Yes, and there's this wonderful Italian family. All of them are merchants, butchers, grocery people.

and there's this music. They celebrated everything with music, and they all loved music. And my uncle was a drummer and a butcher. My dad was probably to this day. I think of my dad. I think of like the toughest person I've ever known. And grew up, won the Golden Gloves twice, met my mother.

He was a prize fighter. Yeah, he was a fighter, boxer. But inside of him was this other part, which was the music. He just, he loved music, he loved the drums, but it was not in his realm. He had to support himself and raise his family. So he meets my mom, and she bought him a set of drums. She said, I won't marry you if you're going to continue to fight. And he said, he loved her, he loved her so much.

And she went out and went to Sherman and Clay at his music store in San Francisco. and bought him a set of drums, which was not cheap in the 1940s, you know. And they got married. So I was born, and there was an instrument in the house. But San Francisco was alive because it was a big harbor too during the war, so it was already diverse because of all this scene. And your uncle and your father would take you to clubs,

Count Basie, you saw Louis Armstrong. The big ballrooms, yeah, yeah. They would take me out there because they wanted to hear that music. I was just a kid. And my friends were like, well, I'm going to be home tonight. I'm getting dressed up, and I'm going to the Edgewater and see Gene Krupa's band. And then I'm going to go up and talk to Gene Krupa

and get some drumsticks afterwards. I'm going to talk to these guys. But you weren't always left directly into the club, though. You'd have to sit on the edge. Oh, I'd have to sit. sit up with my dad, you know, he would leave me because he would want to go up and play in the jam session. There were jam sessions. So he would leave me with this wonderful, the club was called Tin Pan Alley. And he would leave me with this wonderful policewoman, about 240 pounds.

And then she would put me on a little stool by the side, so I was out of harm's way, but I could see the bandstand. She'd give me a little Shirley Temple, a little straw, and she'd say, all right, sweetie and then all of a sudden i'd turn around and she'd be throwing a sailor out the door i mean and that was the norm it was all there there was prostitutes pimps it was the nightlife the nightlife that that underbelly of the tenderloin but somehow when i look back on it it was somewhat healthier something because it wasn't didn't seem perverted to me it just seemed so fascinating and something at that age i remember that first feeling of knowing something or being a part of something that wasn't quote the straight world that there was something else now when i went

there soon they would invite these musicians would all invite me up to play and you used to go to the black clubs yeah and get kicked out i'd snuck in and why were you being kicked how old were you And what were you, who you? The first one was really like 13. I was 13 years old. There was a club called a cuckoo club on H Street in San Francisco. And people had told me you had to go to jam sessions. It's scary.

I was terrorized, terrorized. So I went in, you know, like I get it all together, man. I'm looking. In your suit? No, I'm dressed for that. You know, I got like a sport coat. I look hip. I know how to act.

I'm not acting dumb, you know. And pretty much, there's a few white faces in there, but at a jam session, it's always a pecking order. But when there's a moment, you can go up and play. You go up and put it on the line. So I go up there and it's like, you know, okay, I sit down behind the drums, and I'm doing okay so far. And they call off some tune like boom, some blues or something, you know.

And I start to play in this. to me, you seemed like the largest black man I'd ever seen in my life. And he just turns around, gets up, grabs the drumsticks from my hand, and says, get up off of there, you're a little no-playing white mother, O'Fey. O'Fey? Yeah, very insulting. It was a slang word for white people, what black people called white people.

You know, you're a little O'Fay, you know. And literally threw me off the drum set. So I went outside, and I cried just, I was sobbing. And then that thing came up. If you don't go back in there, you're done. You'll never go back in there. And I went back in. And I wish I could say I sounded great, but I didn't.

And I went back in there, and they wouldn't let me play. but I stayed. I stayed and I listened and I went back the next week and the next week and I listened and slowly somebody let me play again

and I would like to say I did better but I didn't really you know they just I became so familiar that I was kind of the running joke almost but I was a part of it they didn't kick me out I didn't quit

and that was going to be the pattern until I had my place and that was the school kids don't get that now and it was very cruel and very loving at the same time tell me about

I don't know how old you were when you saw Charlie Parker and what was that experience I must have been 12 you know where was that it was in Earl Father Heinz had a club famous piano player in San Francisco. My uncle took me. He said, we're going to go hear bebop.

Come on, you don't understand. I said, okay, and I went. It was like the earth opening up, the sky opening up, to hear him, to hear that music. I had no idea, but I knew. I've always felt that we're blessed as human beings, and I felt blessed that I could recognize musical truth.

What was a song that you remember, that he played then? I didn't even know the name of it, but I know it was faster, and it was more notes than I'd ever heard. There appeared to be no rules that I knew of. They were all gone, and I didn't understand the thing, but I just knew that that was startlingly amazing, like walking in and seeing a Picasso,

and you have no idea, but it takes your breath away, and you know you're staring at the truth. And that's what it was like for me. And then began the journey of learning that, how to be a part of that. So it was around the age of 20. Yeah, that's 20. When you caught the attention of Vince Garaldi.

People brought me to his attention. People brought you to his attention. Well, that's because you're incredible. What was it about this young Jerry Grinelli that caught his attention when he was... It was pure spirit, man. You know, I'm 22 years old. I've got all the chops in the world. Not bragging, but Joe Morello.

That's who I was studying with. One of the greatest drummers. Yeah, technically the greatest. Nobody had more technique on the instrument than him at that time. And me. And I just come in there. I'm red hot, man. I got a job with a trio with a hit record.

We're working every night. I'm looking pretty good. This is it. This is part of the dream. And I come in there to set the forest on fire. And Vince just stops me one night. He goes, hey, man, come here. And I thought, oh, shit, he's going to fire me.

Which was always a threat. And he goes, look, and he was so sweet. He said, I don't need all that shit you're bringing me. what I need is that fire that makes you want to play it just bring me that and there's that lesson early on lesson only give to music what it needs

so at the height of the fame with the The Vince Goraldi trio, you left. When I left, I really left. I went to a completely different direction. You went to free jazz. I went to, I found, I followed the music that I knew was mine. I followed the music that I knew was mine. Made great records, made a name, whatever this thing is that I am or reputation.

I made all that. Open jazz, free jazz, yeah. Yeah, it was, it really is spontaneous composition. That's what we perfected. That's what we grew into, and that took, even went into psychedelic. It just was a wonderful journey in my life. I became, someone pushed me in, there's 25 or 28 records that I became a leader in the model of Max Roach, having, being a composer, a leader. Yes, you're in the rock and roll whole of fame for psychedelic.

Yeah, creating psychedelic music, yeah. Right. So I got to be on all this wonderful stuff. I got to work with great, all the great Ginsburg as buddy. We did. I got to. I had been through all that. I'd been through the wildest things you can possibly imagine.

You know, fun, great things. Oh, give me one example. Well, you know, how about end of 1970, Grateful Dead, there's a promoter in Europe who decided that he wants to bring the Dead and us,

light sound dimension band, was playing with light show and everything, to France. So this is a band you were playing in that had a light artist who was doing... Yeah, we had come up with... We were just playing,

making our own electronic instruments. We had our theater. Psychedelic jazz. Yeah, and with visuals. Right. And the audiences were like Pink Floyd, all these bands who would come to San Francisco, would come to hang out.

And so you went on tour with the Grateful Dead. Yeah, the Dead are like, he wants you guys to come, too. So we're, okay, so we get tickets. We land in Paris. Now, nobody in Paris had seen that many people with that long beards and hair. I mean, totally the amounts of LSD in us and proceeded to go across France like that. You know, every day.

One day, we don't have a place to stay. The next day, we're staying at the funky Chateau. There's tapes still out there. Phil Leach talks about it in his. the next day we're playing for this entire French village for free for the summer solstice and we're doing this concert overnight giving everybody in this French town acid oh my lord you know they're just and everybody's so happy and I'm you know I'm standing at Swiss air because I have to go home because my my son is going to be born my wife called me

Jackie, she said, hey, man, you know, it's like, and I'm standing there, and all I've got are these beautiful rocks, trying to convince this woman that she should let me on the plane. You're going to give her rocks? I'm going to give her these really precious rocks, and she does. Wow. You paid a high on LSD, you paid for a plane ticket with rocks. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What did finally getting sober and completely sober and free of drugs in the 80s, 87? Yeah. What did that do to you as a musician? Scared the hell out of me first. But again, it wasn't about the music. What scared the hell out of you? First time I had to play without any substance in me. I had done that since I was a child.

Yeah. But, I mean, all the records I made, all those things, all those concerts, you know, we were usually high on something. But it didn't affect the music. It was never about affecting the music. It was helped learn it. I would not recommend it. But that was just that part. But when I was sober, that was a whole other, maybe getting sober had more some fruition to the Buddhist work that I had done before.

the it's about being a human being and how you work with others and how do you work with your own fears and so I had never been taught to deal with any of that I was protected from dealing with my own fear and you lost so many friends who didn't become human sure man I mean you know so many great talents we lost in this life great genius artists that we've lost

because they had no human training they had no way to deal with those things as a human being. And music can give you a natural high. That's what Jimmy Hendricks said. You knew Jimmy. Yeah. Jimmy was like trying to deal with the whole thing.

He just wanted to make that music. He went through whatever. He went through to, you know, to try to deal with money, try to people rip you off. He had his own personal pain. He was a sweetie. Was he? But he wasn't, he didn't have the skills

are the help. How did you know him? In the wild days of San Francisco in the film or, you know. All those things that became an industry, well, at first, because we were playing so crazy, we started to play on H Street

in the rock clubs, the hippie, quote, hippie club. I was too old to be a hippie. But because those kids were open to this crazy-ass music. Jazz clubs weren't. The psychedelic jazz, the free jazz. Yeah, we were playing free.

We had our own instruments. Bill Graham had a club called The Matrix. And just like get us out of his hair. He said, come to work at the club, I'll give you guys a gig, you know. But the opening band was Janice Joplin and the Sons of Champlin. Big Brother in the Holding Company. Janice had just joined them they could barely play

in the middle was myself Fred Marshall and Noel Jukes we were playing completely out free music spontaneous music just like sounds people hadn't heard

because of these instruments and out no rules it seemed and then the third band was Jefferson Airplane Gracie had just joined them we were all making $8 dollars a night. Bill Graham

put up with us in the middle. So it was family, it was a community, it was kids, I mean the dad come in and they'd be like how the hell are you doing that? Because, you know, those days, those rock and rollers didn't know how to play. They were all artists who got

it was another social thing. But we could play. We were musicians. I was making I was supporting myself because those managers would hire me to go teach the sons of Champlain. and the Quicksilver Messenger service drummers. All those people.

I was teaching them how to actually play the drums. But it was so wonderful because that that scene was so open, we weren't no longer constricted by suits and ties and jazz clubs and those terrible rules, all those rules, you know. What was Jimmy like to listen to? Oh, it was wonderful. It was the same listening to Charlie Parker. He was just, he was a force of that music.

The music represents itself, the spirit of that music, I think it represents itself in different people at different times. I don't necessarily get in trouble. I don't necessarily hear it coming through, quote, quote, jazz right now. I hear it coming through, what's his name, Kendall? great rapper, man, DJ. Oh. Lamar Kendall, is it?

Oh, Kendrick Lamar. Yeah. Wow. And I heard him, and I went... Why? Just because I was like, man, that's a reincarnation of Duke Allington. We've been hurt, been down before.

When I pride was low, looking at the world like, where do we go? And we hate po-poor when they kill us dead in the street for sure. I'm at the preacher's door. My knees getting weak, My gun might blow, but we're going to be all right. We're going to be all right.

It's got the whole thing. Wow. It's crazy. It's magnificent. It's raw. It's got an edge. It breaks your heart and tears you open. There, I hear it there.

I hear it somewhere else. You hear bits and pieces of it. But it doesn't necessarily. I don't necessarily go to a job. jazz club to listen to it, unless it's one of my friends or somebody that I know, you know. And I'm sure I'm probably missing something. And so let's go to, in the terms of not wanting to be the same thing, it was 55 years ago this month. You turn 80 this month, and it's 55 years ago this month at the Charlie Brown, a Charlie Brown Christmas show, first aired.

Yeah. And you were on that record, that beloved iconic record. But you didn't return to playing that music until 2013. In fact, even you and I talked to you were concerned about this, not being all about that, just for those reasons you say there to be an original. You fought it. What were you fighting for not playing it at all since you were in your 20s? Well, people come up with dumb ideas.

And when I left, I really left. I went in a completely different direction. I followed the music that I knew was mine. So I just, I was busy doing that. And then when Charlie came back around, I began, it annoyed me because I realized I had to grow up. I had to actually not let it. I had to actually accept it.

And I had to appreciate the joy that it brought people. I had to get my ego out of it. Because, you know, someday in a long time from now that when you pass in the New York Times, you'll get no bit. And the first line might say It was part of the trio that played and created a Charlie Brown's Christmas. That's good. Is that okay?

Yeah, that's fine. That's great. I'm honored. This was not a conversation just about a Charlie Brown's Christmas, but it is going to be Christmas in a few days, and then on the 30th, you turn 80. But because this is airing just before Christmas on ideas, do you mind if we end with a piece of music from a Charlie Brown's Christmas?

No. And it's a piece that you just recently did an album playing Vince's music and Moses's music. But you only took one song of Vince's from Charlie Brown's Christmas. Yeah. Jamie wanted to play it. And what song was that? Christmas time is here. Christmas time is here.

It's Jamie wanted to play it because he grew up on it. Most piano players want to play it. It's a beautiful song. and it's particularly Vince had a great dream he always wanted to write a great American standard

you know to be in a great American song book something that went on like body and soul or one of those and he did man this tune Christmas time is here and it's a beautiful song and we played it

just simply because Jamie asked that we played. Jamie's your piano player and you're in your trio. Yeah, Jamie's, he said, man, we got to play that song. And it's true, you kind of got to play it. And I mean, pretty much I play it.

Maybe I played a little looser, but it can only be played one way. And Jamie was like, oh, man, you play it a lot slower than it is. I said, yeah, because we played it every night, but we got so we played it so slow. it was just so organic it was like an amoeba moving you know and they say you know they say that at charley brown's christmas the the cartoon would not have been as iconic would not have been iconic without the music and that song because there's a melancholy in it yeah and christmas can be

melancholic right because christmas is some ways christmas is always about a past christmas as opposed to the current christmas sure it's so much about memory why do you think this song is so touches us so deeply in the core because there's something about it or maybe it can't be explained but what is it about this song do you think I think you said it it goes to that core

it goes to that core it's just you know it's like any beautiful ballad it's not it's not meant to make you sad it's meant to make you open it kind of opens you

and you're touchable you actually your human heart is touchable there's nothing like a beautiful melody and a ballad coming together that harmony of the of the world coming together at such a pace that you can hear it

it's not meant to excite you and you're drawn in it's a beautiful sadness it's not even if that can be an expression it doesn't... Yes it's an exquisite sadness because it's not about anybody it's about your life

It's about life, and people feel that with Christmas. That record, Charlie Brown's Christmas, Lee Mendelssohn, the man who produced it. Lee just died last year, and he was my age, and we were sitting out at his house a few years ago, and he looks at me, a couple old guys sitting by a swimming pool, and he goes, you know, if there had been one person different in that room, That day, this would not have happened.

It wouldn't have been that thing, you know, that it turned out being. And part of the beauty is that at the time you didn't even realize what you had created. Not even. We weren't interested. No, but that's kind of pure. Yes, I think that, I think that, I think that that that piece of work is just innocent in the sense that it doesn't have ego dripping off. it's innocent and I think that it has no manipulation

there was no hype it went on the air against all odds CBS like I said CBS did not want to play it not at all no part of it they thought it was a joke that Coca-Cola was getting ripped off

Coca-Cola had paid for it they felt that the cartoon the drawing wasn't sophisticated enough no one would want to hear jazz music nope they just said no and the whole thing just it's like just a little rickety thing snuck in there

and the I have seen the postcards that people wrote that night half the viewing audience watched it half the viewing audience in the states were watching that and why that's the great because it's because it's human

it was ordinary it was ordinary my teacher used to They're ordinary magic. You know, hey. It was ordinary magic. It was ordinary magic. The Beatles were ordinary magic.

They were just busy being the Beatles. Bob Dylan, you know. He was being Bob Dylan. He didn't have a choice. We were just being ourselves, and everybody liked it. Jerry. Yes. Happy birthday.

Oh, thank you, Mary. Merry Christmas. Thank you. What a gift to get to meet you. And what a gift to get to meet you. Oh, my gosh. How wonderful. You're your magical. You're not ordinary magic. You're extraordinary magic. I'm so weird. It's weird. You're so fabulous. And thank you for all the beauty you have given the world.

My pleasure. True. Thank you. You were listening to Ordinary Magic, the musical genius of Jerry Grenelli. He was in conversation with Ideas producer Mary Link at his home in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Sadly, Jerry Grinelli passed away on July 20th, 2021, at the age of 80. This is Ideas. To see a video of Grinnelly playing on his drums, go to cbc.ca.ca. slash ideas. Technical production, Pat Martin. Web producer Lisa Ayusa. Senior producer Nicola Luxem.

Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas, and I'm Nala Ayyed. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.