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Related Projects:
V16
Simon Fisk Trio
Sandhills Reunion
Iron Sky

A Granellian Encounter:

Jazz meets hip-hop in this striking, visually arresting record of an encounter in Halifax of master jazz drummer Gerry Granelli and rap / hip-hop artist Stinkin' Rich. No simple meet, greet and perform documentary about two musicians, this is a work that tries to be as formally innovative as its subject matter. It mostly succeeds. Mackenzie makes sound and image interact in inventive, surprising ways. Indeed, for most of this piece what you're hearing is not what you're seeing and vice versa. As Granelli talks about his illustrious career in jazz and his interest in emergent musical forms like rap and hip-hop, his drumming performances are made to collide with sundry sonic shards on the asynchronous soundtrack. The effect is dazzling. Photographed in brilliant black and white by Nova Scotia filmmaker Chuck Clark, A Granellian Encounter is an innovative, impressive slice of Maritime cinematic cubism, a tone poem about two sprawling musical forms which, like their practitioners, attempt to deconstruct and reconstruct themselves at the same time.

In the Moment:

Produced by Jan Nathanson & Directed by Colin MacKenzie
Jerry Granelli- In The Moment is a documentary about the musical, spiritual and physical journey of 1960s top San Francisco session drummer Jerry Granelli. Jerry, a Halifax based jazz drummer, grew up in 40s and 50 San Francisco and came of age in the 60s as one of the cities top drummers. Jerry Granelli has traveled from the Italian neighborhoods in 19 40s San Francisco, to the founding of a Buddhist University in Boulder Colorado, then a cutting edge music professor in Seattle Washington, and finally following his Buddhist teacher to Halifax, Nova Scotia. All the while Granelli has been pushing to its limit the definition of music and musicianship. Deep Beats is a documentary about what it is to be a student and what it is to be a teacher and what it is to be a musician. A musical quest that at the age of sixty, Jerry refuses to give up.