Joe Gransden makes Christmas swing at Eddie’s Attic | EarRelevant

CONCERT REVIEW:

Joe Gransden Holiday Special with Robin Latimore
December 22, 2023
Eddie’s Attic
Decatur, Georgia – USA
Joe Gransden, trimpet/flugelhorn/vocals; Robin Latimore, vocals; Geoff Haydon, piano; Neal Starkey, bass; Chris Burroughs, drums; John Sandfort, tenor sax; Lee King, trumpet; Vinnie Dagostino, baritone saxophone/clarinet; West Funderburk, trombone..
James PIERPONT: “Jingle Bells”
Irving BERLIN: “Happy Holiday” / Kay THOMPSON: “It’s the Holiday Season”
Meredith WILLSON: “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”
Leroy ANDERSON: “Sleigh Ride”
Jay LIVINGSTON/Ray EVANS: “Silver Bells”
Felix BERNARD/Richard Bernhard SMITH: “Winter Wonderland”
Johnny MARKS: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
Lou BAXTER/Johnny MOORE: “Merry Christmas Baby”
Hugh MARTIN/Ralph BLANE: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
attr: to George Frideric HANDEL/Isaac WATTS: “Joy to the World”
Robert L. MAY: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
Billy HAYES/Jay W. JOHNSON: “Blue Christmas”
Vince GUARALDI: “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Medley
Adolphe ADAM: “O Holy Night”

Mark Gresham | 27 DEC 2023

‘Twas three nights before Christmas, and at Eddie’s Attic seasonal music was in full swing with back-to-back performances of the Joe Gransden Holiday Special, a long-standing Atlanta tradition. Joe Gransden and his eight-piece jazz band, plus special guest vocalist Robin Latimore, had already performed the night before at Red Clay Music Foundry in Duluth and were on tap for another night at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur on Saturday. I heard the second show on Friday evening, which started shortly after the 9:30 pm launch time.

Although noted for a “hard bop” trumpet style (think Lee Morgan and Miles Davis as historical precedents), Gransden’s playing has broader scope; he also played a bit of flugelhorn in the show. He gives equal time to his vocals, and while touted as somewhat Sinatra-like, Harry Connick Jr. might be a fairer comparison.

With his rhythm section onstage (pianist Geoff Haydon, bassist Neal Starkey, and Chris Burroughs on drums), Gransden and his fellow winds paraded into the EA listening room playing a Dixieland “Jingle Bells”: tenor saxophonist John Sandfort, trumpeter Lee King, trumpet, trombonist West Funderburk, and Vinnie Dagostino on clarinet (who quickly switched to bari sax for the rest of the show).

The band then worked their way through a handful of popular standards: “Happy Holiday”/“It’s the Holiday Season” (a traditional tune pairing), “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas” (featuring the facile velocity Sandfort’s tenor sax playing), “Sleigh Ride,” and “Silver Bells” before launching into a seriously upbeat “Winter Wonderland.”

Next, Gransden introduced vocalist Robin Latimore, who started her set with an energized “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” The tempo relaxed a little into a slower swing mode with “Merry Christmas Baby,” then focused on a more sentimental lyricism with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Stepping back to a traditional Christmas carol, the band took up three approaches to “Joy to the World,” first evoking a jazzy Baroque sentiment with Lee King featured on piccolo trumpet, then as a harmonically rich chorale for the wind section arranged by Funderburk, and finally underscored with a Latin-beat and Latimore taking up the vocal.

Then came “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” followed by a song made popular by Elvis Presley, “Blue Christmas,” which gave Starkey’s unpretentiously solid supporting bass a little spotlight under Gransden’s vocal. Haydon has his featured moment next in a medley of three tunes from the classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” television special.

The show’s grand finale brought “O Holy Night” Latimore back to center stage, a fine showpiece for her, in which the band then pushed to a joyously raucous, exhilarating conclusion. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening that left the audience to depart in high spirits. ■

Joe Gransden will perform at Napoleon’s in Decatur on January 8, 2024 (“Joe’s Jazz Jam Session” each Monday) and on January 9, 2024 at Roaring Social (“Big Band Night” every 2nd Tuesday) in Alpharetta.

EXTERNAL LINKS:

- Joe Gransden: joegransden.com
- Robin Latimore: spiveyhall.org

About the author:

Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant. He began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago, but has been a composer of music much longer than that. He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003.

Read more by Mark Gresham.