My appreciation for A Charlie Brown Christmas is different from most people’s. I moved truckloads of the unlikely Fantasy Records hit through Walmart as a commissioned sales representative in a previous lifetime. Initial orders each year were in the five figures, quantities that facilitated many happy holidays in my home.
Jerry Granelli, the drummer on the timeless classic released in 1965, died this week. But his role in making money for a middleman isn’t his only contribution to my life. Granelli played an inadvertent role in helping me avoid becoming as jaded as many of my mercenary colleagues.
Another Place, Granelli’s adventurous 1994 release on Intuition Records, was one of my favorite albums of that year. Highlighting the exquisite tandem of saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and trombonist Julian Priester, Another Place kept me company in rental cars and motel rooms on countless sales trips.
While it took no more time to sell 30,000 units of A Charlie Brown Christmas to a box store behemoth than it did to place three copies of Another Place in a discriminating mom-and-pop shop, my obvious appreciation for the non-commercial recordings I represented almost certainly enhanced my standing among the retail buyers I courted.