Jerry Granelli

Jerry Granelli has been a core faculty member of the ALIA Institute since its first year in 2001. Jazz Times magazine calls Jerry “one of those uncategorizable veteran percussionists who’s done it all.”  He burns with an intensity fuelled by a passion for “the pursuit of the spirit of spontaneity which drives the player.” A veteran of the San Francisco jazz scene, Jerry performed with many major players including Mose Allison, Lou Rawls and Sly Stone. He later shared bills with Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Grateful Dead.

Granelli became a Buddhist in 1970, and from the mid-70s through the ’90s he focused on teaching at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Seattle’s Cornish Institute, the Maritime Conservatory in Halifax, and the Hochschule der Kunst in Berlin.

Jerry is a keystone in the jazz community of Halifax. Along with the Jazz East organization, he founded the Creative Music Workshop, a two-week intensive music program that takes place every summer in conjunction with the Atlantic Jazz Festival.

For a video biography of Jerry and a sampling of his music, go to his website.