GREETINGS
FRIENDS,
Welcome to the
new and improved scottamendola.com. Take a look around. Things
are just getting started around here. In the coming months we will
be adding more Audio/Video fun with new and old footage and audio,
more photographs, and a more extensive page on my gear as well,
and much more.
SCOTT
AMENDOLA BAND & THE JIM CAMPILONGO ELECTRIC TRIO @
Cafe Du Nord this Monday July 7th @ 8pm
Scott Amendola Band returns to the bay area. I'm very excited to
be doing a double bill with Jim
Campilongo especially since I get to play drums with him. Nels
Cline, Jeff Parker,
and John Shifflett will make up the power quartet.
Expect a raging guitar summit at the end of the night!
 BILL
FRISELL'S ALL HAT FILM MUSIC RECORD
Hey!
I'm on a Bill
Frisell record! it's some music for a Canadian
Film called All
Hat. Bill
Frisell, Jenny
Scheinman, Greg Leisz, Viktor
Krauss, and yours truly. Some fun down home
music. Check out the review below.
The
problem with attempting to define Americana is that it is an
all-encompassing term culturally speaking. As far as music goes,
Americana runs the gamut from the Grateful Dead to Willie Nelson
and just about everything in between. Equally, the music of guitarist
Bill Frisell is difficult to describe without embarking on a
short essay, and perhaps because of his eclecticism his music
defines the essence of Americana as well as any and better than
most.
This original score for Canadian film maker Leonard Farlinger's All
Hat sees Frisell accompanied by familiar associates—Jenny
Scheinman on violin, Greg Leisz on steel guitars and mandolin and
Viktor Krauss on bass, as well as Scott Amendola on drums and percussion,
and Mark Graham on harmonica. Scheinman, Leisz and Krauss have
long accompanied Frisell on his ongoing journey into the country,
bluegrass and folk which has characterized much of his music this
last decade; not for nothing does All Hat sound like a
proper group outing.
Frisell has always been able to mine the simplest tune and extract
unexpected riches; the main theme, for example, is visited four
times and yet sounds radically different each time, going from
the beautiful acoustic guitar version with shuffling drum beat
and Scheinman's train-rhythm violin, to a Johnny Cash-style chug-along
romp, to a most graceful Southern waltz.
There are thirty one pieces ranging from thirty seconds to four
minutes long, but there is a powerful continuity about this score.
Frisell's music is often pictorial, and these sixty minutes are
like an uninterrupted journey through changing landscapes, as sun
and moon slowly chase each other's tails. One can easily imagine
the wide plains and prairies, fields of wheat and small, nondescript
towns either side of endless, straight highway. It's not all pastoral
reverie however, and there are several interludes where Frisell's
dark guitar-distortion rumbles, brooding and foreboding, like storm-heavy
skies.
In many ways Frisell is ideally suited to cinema composition as
it is remarkable how much he can weave in one minute, seemingly
without breaking sweat; the tune “Hardy Race” may be
the best one-minute square-dance ever, with mandolin and slide
providing the melody while Krauss, Amendola and Scheinman lay down
a delightful, bobbing rhythm. On All Hat the music rocks
and grinds at times, burns slowly at others, and melts into the
sunset, accompanied by Frisell's loops and ringing single note
lines.
Producer Lee Townsend (as much a part of the Frisell posse as any
of the musicians) has, as ever, done a beautiful job with this
wonderful soundtrack, music which is outstanding in and of itself.
Without having seen Leonard Farlinger's film, it is surely safe
to say that if it is as satisfying as Frisell's music, then it
is a must-see. All hats off to Frisell. - Ian Patterson, All
About Jaz
This past April, I was in the studio in NY with Ben
Goldberg, Charlie Hunter, and Ron Miles for an upcoming release.
The band is tentatively called Go Home and features music by Ben.
More to report soon. Please keep coming round. New
stuff will be popping up here often.
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