Charlie Hunter, Scott Amendola
Cat's Cradle - Back Room
04/21/2014 08:00 PM EDT
$15.00
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Charlie Hunter
The Supremely Funky Duo of Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola Deliver Their Second Release, Pucker, An Album Focusing on the Drummer’s Compositions
The jazz scene’s funkiest duo isn’t waiting around for a rising tide. Following up on last year’s critically hailed Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead, guitarist Charlie Hunter and drummer Scott Amendola return with Pucker, a lean and sinewy session marked by fierce grooves, caressing melodies, and startlingly intuitive interplay.
Due out on Amendola’s label SAZi Records on October 15th, 2013, the album opens a whole new frontier for the duo with a program of Amendola’s evocative compositions. He established himself as a highly effective composer writing for his five-piece Scott Amendola Band and his trio with guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist John Shifflett, but until now the duo has focused on the seven-string guitar wizard’s muscular tunes. Looking to take a break from writing to focus on his guitar craft, Hunter realized that the duo could thrive while investigating a whole new body of music.
“After 20 years of constant writing I figured it was time to take a break and explore the guitar again,” Hunter says. “I told Scott, if you’ve got enough music together we could make a record of your tunes. What I like is that it really fits right into what we’ve been doing all along, simple music with a lot of space. Scott’s not burdened by trying to be jazzy. He’s a drummer who’s really listening to everything with big ears. He was already driving the bus.”
What’s most impressive about Pucker is the range of moods and textures the duo creates. The album opens with the forthright funk of “Leave On,” a tribute to the late great Levon Helm that’s almost intoxicated by its own high-stepping swagger. More tangy than sour, the brief buzzy title track feels like a calypsonian anthem for a combo lost in the bayou. With “Deep Eyes” the duo delves into introspective balladry with a gossamer melody that’s as exquisite as it is disquieting. “Tiny Queen” is even more spacious, but rather than gazing inward, the singsong melody is a lingering, open-hearted embrace that’s dazzled by its own quiet intensity. And “Rubbed Out,” which Amendola released back in 2000 as “Slow Zig,” is a case study in the lean, predatory funk that the duo has made a stock in trade.
The album closes with one of Amendola’s greatest hits, “Buffalo Bird Woman,” a tune memorably featured on the Scott Amendola Band’s 2005 Cryptogramophone release Believe. In this incarnation, she’s even more mysterious, wary, wise, and full of well-guarded secrets.
Amendola conceived of much of the music on Pucker for Hunter’s singular musical gifts. Though they already shared years of bandstand experience together, he drew from the dynamic they honed as the rhythm section for clarinetist Ben Goldberg’s rootsy 2008 project Go Home. “Seeing how Ben wrote for Charlie offered a cool new window into how we could work together,” Amendola says. “Charlie’s instrument is very particular. If you have a bassist and guitarist you would write two parts. Ben had to adapt music to the way that Charlie distills both roles.”
No tune better illustrates the way that Hunter strips compositions down to their essentials than “Scott’s Tune,” the album’s only non-Amendola track. Written as a detailed, almost through-composed chart by Amendola’s grandfather, the late, highly regarded New York session guitarist Tony Guttuso, the album’s centerpiece ended up as a loose and limber bluesy stroll powered by Amendola’s graceful brush work.
Pucker marks a milestone for Amendola and Hunter, who first played together 20 years ago. They may not have been fated to form a dynamic duo, but clearly there was some powerful mojo at work. Wielding his custom-built eight-string axe (he dropped a string years later), the Berkeley-raised Hunter was a rising star on the Bay Area acid jazz scene in 1993 when he called Amendola to fill in for drummer Jay Lane at a Paradise Lounge gig in San Francisco on July 3, 1993.
The New Jersey-bred Amendola was still a relative newcomer, having recently moved to the Bay Area after graduating from Berklee, and was supporting himself by delivering bread and gigging. He had heard about Hunter but never seen him play, and decided to wangle his way out of an already scheduled gig to make the date. “I’m really glad I did that, because instantly there was something there,” Amendola recalls.
If their combustible bandstand chemistry wasn’t enough to cement their budding musical relationship, they shared an uncanny listening experience while playing CDs for each other during one of their first hangs. “I’m putting on Metheny and Scofield,” Amendola says. “Charlie says, check this out and starts playing an album, and I say, that’s my grandfather. He was playing ‘Satan Takes a Holiday’ a classic track that on this CD Pioneers of Jazz Guitar. Charlie was laughing. He had transcribed the solo when he was much younger. The best part is that when we were touring in New York he got to meet my grandfather, who was totally blown away by what Charlie was doing.”
Amendola went on to play for several years in Hunter’s trio and recorded on a diverse array of the guitarist’s mid-90s Blue Note albums, including the 1996 quartet session Ready…Set…Shango!, the hit 1997 album covering Bob Marley tunes Natty Dred, and 1998’s amazing Pound For Pound quartet session with vibraphonist Stefon Harris and percussionist John Santos Return of the Candyman. At the same time they also worked together extensively in the Grammy Award-nominated power quartet T.J. Kirk with guitarists John Schott and Will Bernard.
With Hunter’s move to Brooklyn around 1998 their paths diverged and Amendola started concentrating on leading his own ensembles. His quintet gained widespread attention with its prodigious cast of improvisers, including guitarists Nels Cline and Jeff Parker, violinist Jenny Scheinman, and bassist Todd Sickafoose and John Shifflett.
These days Amendola tours and records with Nels Cline Singers, an instrumental trio with bassist Trevor Dunn, and continues to refine his orchestral duo with Hammond B-3 organist Wil Blades. And since he and Hunter reconverged several years ago, they’ve avidly pursued their partnership, a creatively charged relationship that’s built on their contrasting backgrounds.
“Scott definitely came out of the music school thing and I absolutely did not,” Hunter says. “It worked well both ways, with him learning a lot of visceral things from me, and me learning a lot of things from him. I think the duo setting works so well because we meet in the middle, and there’s such a wide range of things we can call on. What I love about Scott is that I know he’s not going to play the obvious things when I call on something, and I know it’s going to groove.”
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With a career spanning 18 years and almost 20 albums, Hunter consistently ups his game as an innovative writer and bandleader. He has worked with the likes of Norah Jones, Mos Def, John Mayer, D'Angelo and countless others. He is widely considered the authority on the seven and eight-string guitar, and continues to stun audiences with his ability to simultaneously bust out tasty bass parts, melodic leads and swinging rhythms. Hunter has previously recorded for the venerable Blue Note label, Concord, Ropeadope and others. His recent independent venture is steered by his motivation to release music that most inspires him. Critics have touted his genius technique, but it's his profound artistic sensibility that propels his original music. Hunter's signature style of writing and performing has secured his
place as one of today's great guitarists.
Hunter's newest album is a duo recording with drummer Scott Amendola. "Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead" was recorded with Hunter and Amendola playing in the same room simultaneously -- an old-school recording method that has been virtually lost in today's cut-and-paste world
"A terrific guitarist" –Downbeat
"A homespun marvel" -New York Times
"…a man who [has] built his badass reputation by conquering hairy bass lines and heady post-bop
melodies simultaneously on custom eight-string instruments… Hunter is still a musical beast." -Guitar
Player
"…Hunter - well known for playing a seven-string instrument - rips through the air with superrock fuzz
and fusion mettle." -Rolling Stone
Scott Amendola
Scott Amendola
Drummer/Percussionist/Composer/Band Leader/Electronic Sound Mover
“Amendola, who played with Hunter in T.J. Kirk back in the early ’90s, is the perfect partner for the guitarist, complementing his chilled funk with fat propulsion and deft melodic accents and counterpoint that never leave the listener noticing that only two folks are making the noise.” Peter Margasak, emusic
“Amendola has complete mastery of every piece of his drumset and the ability to create a plethora of sounds using sticks, brushes, mallets, and even his hands.” Steven Raphael, Modern Drummer magazine
“If Scott Amendola didn't exist, the San Francisco music scene would have to invent him.” Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian
“...drummer/signal-treater Scott Amendola is both a tyrant of heavy rhythm and an electric-haired antenna for outworldly messages (not a standard combination).” Greg Burk, LA Weekly
For Scott Amendola, the drum kit isn’t so much an instrument as a musical portal. As an ambitious composer, savvy bandleader and capaciously creative foil for some of the world’s most inventive musicians, Amendola applies his wide- ranging rhythmic virtuosity to a vast array of settings. His closest musical associates include guitarists Jeff Parker, Nels Cline and Charlie Hunter, Hammond B-3 organist Wil Blades, ROVA saxophonist Larry Ochs, and Tin Hat clarinetist Ben Goldberg, players who have each forged a singular path within and beyond the realm of jazz.
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 artists in jazz, blues, rock and new music. A potent creative catalyst, the Berkeley-based drummer became the nexus for a disparate community of musicians stretching from Los Angeles and Seattle to Chicago and New York. Whatever the context, Amendola possesses a gift for twisting musical genres in unexpected directions.
His latest project is “PUCKER”, the second release by his supremely funky duo with seven-string guitar wizard Charlie Hunter. Following up on 2012’s critically hailed “Not Getting Behind Is The New Getting Ahead”, the new project marks Hunter and Amendola’s 20th year of playing together, while opening a new frontier by focusing on the drummer’s original compositions.
“What I like is that it really fits right into what we’ve been doing all along, simple music with a lot of space,” Hunter says. “Scott’s not burdened by trying to be jazzy. He’s a drummer who’s really listening to everything with big ears.”
Amendola continues to tour and record with Nels Cline Singers, the volatile
instrumental trio led by the legendary Wilco guitarist. The band’s new album featuring special guests Cyro Baptista, Josh Jones, Zeena Parkins and Yuka Honda, is slated for release in early 2014.
“The first time I heard Scott I was really blown away,” Cline says. “There aren’t too many drummers on the West Coast who had his wide ranging ability. Scott’s got some funk in him, a looser, sexy thing going on, and the flexibility to play free and different styles. He plays behind singer/songwriters and he rocks too.”
Amendola also performs widely with his other duo, the orchestral Amendola Vs Blades featuring Hammond B-3 ace Wil Blades that centers on their thrilling investigation of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Far East Suite. And he’s a rhythmic muse to Berkeley clarinetist/composer Ben Goldberg.
It was through Goldberg’s earthy project Go Home that Amendola and Hunter rededicated themselves to a steady working relationship. They had played together briefly back in 2003 for a reunion of Grammy-nominated avant funk ‘n’ jazz combo T.J. Kirk (the guitar-centric quartet that also featured John Schott and Will Bernard). But Go Home, which was built on Amendola and Hunter’s potent rhythm section tandem, led to a series of duo gigs around Europe and the US.
“It’s always s been amazing whenever we play, but it keeps growing, getting more intuitive,” Amendola says. “What Charlie does is so uncanny. He didn’t set out to create something out of some kind of marketing tool. Ultimately it’s what he heard. When you watch him play, it’s like a brain tease. It’s hard to understand what he’s doing, but when you close your eyes, it’s so beautiful and deep and compelling.”
Given Amendola’s growing stature as a composer, it seems inevitable that the duo with Hunter would turn into the latest vehicle for his melodically charged tunes. He established himself as a highly effective composer writing for his five- piece Scott Amendola Band and his trio with guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist John Shifflett, but made a major leap in April 2011 with the premiere of “Fade to Orange,” a prestigious New Visions/New Vistas commission funded by the James Irvine Foundation. An evening-length collaboration with the Oakland East Bay Symphony, the extended work integrated the mercurial jazz trio with Cline and muscular bassist Trevor Dunn into the orchestra. Amendola’s writing pushed the symphony into unfamiliar territory, while the process of refining and detailing his ideas on sheet music has deepened his interest in writing for his various groups.
“Getting the commission propelled me into a new compositional realm, and working on it opened me up to new possibilities,” he says. “Having to write such specific things for the orchestra made me want to incorporate more of through- composed work into smaller setting. It’s also sparked a desire to work with larger ensembles. I wrote ‘Fade to Orange’ with the idea I could do it with a chamber orchestra, say 20-25 pieces.”
Amendola established his reputation as a bandleader in 1999 with the release of the acclaimed album Scott Amendola Band featuring the unusual instrumentation of Eric Crystal on saxophones, Todd Sickafoose on acoustic bass, Jenny Scheinman on violin, Dave MacNab on electric guitar. By the time the quintet returned to the studio in 2003, Cline had replaced MacNab, contributing to the quintet’s combustible chemistry on the Cryptogramophone album Cry.
Cline was also a crucial contributor on Amendola’s 2005 Cryptogramophone album Believe, which also features Jeff Parker, Jenny Scheinman and John Shifflett. He created his own label, SAZi Records, for his next release, 2010’s exquisite Lift, a trio session with Parker and Shifflett dedicated to his gossamer, bluesy ballads and ethereal soundscapes, with an occasional foray into surf rock deconstruction.
As a sideman, Amendola has performed and recorded with a vast, stylistically varied roster of artists, including Bill Frisell, John Zorn, Mike Patton, Wadada Leo Smith, Madeleine Peyroux, Joan Osborne, Rodney Crowell, Jacky Terrasson, Shweta Jhaveri, Larry Goldings, Sex Mob, Kelly Joe Phelps, Larry Klein, Darryl Johnson, Dave Liebman, Carla Bozulich, Robin Holcomb, Wayne Horvitz, Johnny Griffin, Viktor Krauss, Julian Priester, Jessica Lurie, Sonny Simmons, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Pat Martino, Peter Apfelbaum, Jim Campilongo, Will Bernard, Bobby Black, Paul McCandless, Noe Venable, Mark Turner, and the Joe Goode Dance Group.
Born and raised in the New Jersey suburb of Tenafly, just a stone’s throw from New York City, Amendola displayed an aptitude for rhythm almost from the moment he could walk. His grandfather, Tony Gottuso, was a highly respected guitarist who performed with jazz luminaries such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and Nat “King” Cole. A member of the original Tonight Show Band under Steve Allen, he offered plenty of support when Amendola began to get interested in jazz.
“We used to play together a lot when I was a teenager,” Amendola says. “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 were written.”
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, Danilo Perez, Chris Cheek, 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 in the three-guitar-
and-drums combo T.J. Kirk, which earned a Grammy nomination for its eponymous 1996 debut album. Their musical is one of the strongest threads running through Amendola’s career.
“Ever since I played with my grandfather I’ve just really loved the guitar and I wanted to meet a young guitar player who was doing something different," Amendola says. "And you can’t get more different than what Charlie’s doing.”
While many of the Northern California players Amendola has forged deep ties with have moved to New York, the drummer feels he’s found the perfect environment in the San Francisco Bay Area. With creative relationships spreading out across the country, and the world, he’s never more than one degree away from a powerful musical hook-up.
Venue Information
Cat's Cradle - Back Room
300 East Main St.
Carrboro, NC 27510
http://catscradle.com/