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Scott Amendola
While rooted in the San Francisco Bay
Area scene, Amendola has woven a dense and far reaching web of bandstand
relationships that tie him to influential figures in jazz, blues,
groove, rock and new music. An organizer by nature, he has become a
creative nexus for a community of musicians stretching from Los Angeles
and Seattle to Chicago and New York.
While he first gained widespread notice a decade ago for his work in
eight-string guitar ace Charlie Hunter’s trio, in recent years Amendola
has stepped forward as the leader of several compelling bands that
showcase his supremely supple trap work. He continues to work as a
sideman, accompanying artists such as the tart-toned vocalist Madeleine
Peyroux, guitarist and singer/songwriter Kelly Joe Phelps and the Nels
Cline Singers (a volatile instrumental trio without a vocalist), but
it’s as a bandleader that Amendola’s dynamic, ever-evolving style is
best showcased.
A perfect example is a recent recording session for his next release
(2005) as a bandleader featuring Los Angeles guitar hero Nels Cline and
the visionary Chicago fret-master Jeff Parker, violinist Jenny Scheinman
and stand-up bassist John Shifflett. The music is full of extreme
dynamic shifts and a crunching rock edge, with Amendola adding textural
electronic elements into his trap work via an effects pedal board. “I’m
getting more into sonic things with the pedals, exploring noise,
distortion and sonic textures by manipulating acoustic sounds. I sample
myself live, and then whatever happens happens. It’s totally improvised,
though I’m developing a vocabulary with it.”
Around the Bay Area, Amendola explores the many facets of his expansive
rhythmic sensibility in an intriguing series of small combos. As a jazz
player, for instance, he’s performed extensively with the cooperative
group ‘plays Monk’, a trio featuring clarinetist Ben Goldberg and
bassist Devin Hoff that focuses on the brilliant, knotty composition of
modern jazz giant Thelonious Monk. “We’ve created certain moods for
tunes, more than developing set arrangements,” Amendola says. “What
really makes the trio its own thing and opens up possibilities is the
lack of a chordal instrument. We’ve all played and listened to a lot of
Thelonious Monk. One could really study Monk’s music for a lifetime.”
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There’s also the new potent groove trio with the blazing Hammond B3
newcomer Wil Blades and the brilliant guitarist Will Bernard, whose
relationship with Amendola dates back to their days in the fondly
recalled T.J. Kirk. In a more straight-ahead vein, Amendola has been
performing in a trio version of his band with guitarist Dave Mac Nab, an
original member of the Scott Amendola Band, and Shifflett on acoustic
bass. While the group’s sound continues to evolve, it keys on Mac Nab’s
lean, clean sound, which mostly eschews effects and distortion. “That
trio is definitely more inside,” Amendola says. “There are sonic
textures, and Dave does use some pedals, but it’s really about songs and
melodies and chords more than soundscapes.”
Born and raised in the New Jersey suburb of Tenafly, just a stone’s
throw from New York City, Amendola was the kind of kid who showed an
inclination for rhythm almost from the moment he could walk. His
grandfather Tony Gottuso, a highly respected guitarist who split his
time between studio sessions, was a member of the original Tonight Show
Band under Steve Allen, and would do gigs with jazz luminaries such as
Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Nat “King” Cole,
offered plenty of support when Amendola began to get interested in jazz.
“ We used to play together a lot when I was a teenager. It had a huge
impact on me to play with someone who was around when a lot of the
standards that musicians like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Keith
Jarrett play.”
“I used to bang on things as a kid,” Amendola says. “I’d just sit around
banging on pots and pans and coffee cans. When I was nine, we had to
pick an instrument in school, and I started studying drums at school.”
His passion for music only deepened during his four years at Boston’s
Berklee College of Music, where it wasn’t unusual for him to practice
for 12 hours a day. Drawing inspiration from fellow students such as
Jorge Rossi, Jim Black, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Mark Turner, and studying
with the likes of Joe Hunt and Tommy Campbell, Amendola decided he had
to find his own voice rather than modeling himself after established
drummers. After graduating in 1992, he decided to move to San Francisco,
where he quickly hooked up with Charlie Hunter. They went on to play
together with John Schott and Will Bernard in the
three-guitar-and-drums.
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