Scott Amendola's Excellent Adventure

Even in the social media age there is a type of currency best conveyed in old-school communication, in person or on the phone. Jazzbos' talk can come laden with important subtexts or add-ons. "How are you?" one might ask. "I'm fine. Miguel Zenon got a MacArthur grant. How are you? "Just great. I hear Blue Note is signing developing acts again. My kids are great. And Montalvo residencies are booking hipper fellows."

I took 10 minutes by phone with or from Scott Amendola, the East Bay jazz drummer, while he was prepping for a run of four shows with one combo, an upcoming Palo Alto gig with his quartet, trips to two continents, pre-production for an album, and enjoying face time with his kids.

The Charlie Hunter Scott Amendola duo plays tonight and Saturday at Berkeley's Freight and Salvage, Monday July 18 at Stanford Jazz Workshop and Festival and Sunday at Mountain View's Dana Street Roasting Company (which is sold out). 

The Scott Amendola Quartet plays the SFJazz free Thursday series at Stanford Shopping Center (got that?) on July 28; that group features Amendola, John Schifflett on bass, Eric Deutsch on keys and Joshua Smith on sax. 

Charlie Hunter is famous for his trio, which had featured Scott Amendola for a spell, but also, in turn Jay Lane, Derrek Phillips and Eric Kalb. Hunter and Amendola were part of the Grammy-nominated guitar band TJ Kirk (or James T. Kirk) which featured music of James Brown, Thelonious Monk and Roland Rahsaan Kirk.

Meanwhile, Amendola has a Monk repertoire band called Plays Monk, with Ben Goldberg, clarinet, and Devon Hoff, bass. Plus there is something led by Goldberg called Go Home, also featuring Amendola, Hunter and trumpeter Ron Miles. 

In short, the best jazz players all seem to know each other, are polyamorous, and the scene is interwoven. "An injury to one is an injury to all" as Joe Hill would say. I recall a clinic of middle school students, led by Danilo Perez for Music For Minors in Redwood City, in which jazz music was explained as basically a dialogue or conversation. So a dialogue between Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola, for example, is different that a dialogue between Hunter and Leon Parker, Stanton Moore or Bobby Previte. 

With that in mind, I wanted to get Scott Amendola's thoughts on two other offerings at the Stanford Jazz series. At first he was reluctant, as it is hard enough to get attention to his own work, as a drummer, and in jazz generally. But when I reminded him of the Downbeat "blindfold test" feature, in which Dan Ouellette (who used to live in Berkeley and go jogging with Charlie Hunter) asks musicians to identify musical tracks played by their peers and antecedents, he relaxed and relented. 

Regarding the Bill Frisell show, July 31, he agreed with me that this is a must-see. "People should see them all", Amendola, regarding what started as a 36-part series and continues until Aug. 8, plus the free jam sessions at CoHo. The Frisell show features his 858 String band which features guitar, plus Hank Roberts, cello, Eyvind Kang and one-time El Carmelo of Palo Alto student Jenny Scheinman on violins. 

"This is great for Jenny. I'm really happy for her." Amendola said, of the player who appears on two of his cds. Amendola also reminded me that the string quartet started as a commission from San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as a tribute to Gerhard Richter, the painter. For her to join Bill Frisell's band was received locally like Jeremy Lin going to the Warriors. He noted that Frisell sat in with Plays Monk in Seattle recently.

Amendola said he also appears on the Frisell soundtrack recording for the 2008 Leonard Farlinger film "All Hat" as does Jenny Scheinman.

The other show I wanted to feel him on is The Bad Plus, August 2. The Bad Plus being a trio of Ethan Iverson, piano, Reid Anderson bass and David King drums. They are kind of like the Grateful Dead in that there are people who don't like jazz but go to every Bad Plus show they hear about. An exemplary track for me is their roundabout version (like mentioning Sam Parker before Jeff Parker or at all) of the theme from "Chariots of Fire" on their 2005 "Suspicious Activity?" release. (And I'm glad Wallace Stegner is not here to not feel me write "feel me.")

"Ethan Iverson is a genius," Amendola said, although he has never seen his famous trio play live. "We were loading in once when they were loading out, that is as close as I've come to seeing them." (Charlie Hunter Trio toured with The Bad Plus, but when Phillips was behind the traps). We both like Iverson's blog, "Do The Math."

Regarding the drummer King, Amendola rates two of his other projects, Happy Apple and Buffalo Collusion, as on par or better than Bad Plus. (They are bad plus plus, one could say. "Bad" meaning "good" here, natch). Actually, I was thinking of, but not communicating it, unless telepathically, Dave King's Trucking Company, with Chris Speed, reviewed recently in the Times, with a  new set on Sunnyside. 

After this Elvin Jones sticks of fire flurry of local shows, Amendola is traveling to South America (with Mike Patton) and Europe (with Nels Cline), and then to the East Coast with Charlie. He is hoping to find time to arrange his recent Oakland Symphony commission premier "Fade to Orange" into a small group setting, and record that. 

"Are you recording this?" Amendola asked although he may have said "Is this being recorded?" He said I or my readers (hypothetical, imagined or actual) could go to his website for more info, or more photos. I like the piece in the New York Times archive wherein the writer Nate Chinen compares Amendola to Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen. 

Things are going great then, I suggested, in earnest. "Much respect."

"Keeping hope alive," he responded.

"Keep on bangin'" I offered.

Later we traded texts and he sent Palo Alto Patch readers this exclusive self-portrait which doubles as a plea to buy his excellent cd "Lift" featuring another excellent guitarist Jeff Parker (the Chicago by way of Virginia and Berklee one, not the former Paly soccer, Dartmouth rugby All America and father of a Menlo state meet finalist Sam Parker in the 800 meter, Geoff Parker, a banker, not a banger). 

Can we link to the site that sells the cds?

http://www.amazon.com/Lift-Scott-Amendola/dp/B0041ON3F0

Excellent! Amen. Or Ajazz.