Scott Amendola
New Jersey-born percussionist Scott Amendola is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music. He met guitarist Charlie Hunter soon after arriving in San Francisco in 1992. The two joined forces along with Will Bernard and John Schott to form the innovative band T. J. Kirk (Warner Bros.). T. J. Kirk went on to be nominated for a Grammy in 1995. A year and a half later, Scott joined the Charlie Hunter Quartet. The band toured worldwide and recorded three records for Blue Note. Scott's latest project is his own Scott Amendola Band. The self-titled debut CD features Jenny Scheinman on violin, guitarist Dave MacNab, bassist Todd Sickafoose, and Eric Crystal on reeds.
Scott's music ranges from hard-hitting grooves to lush ballads, and from his original compositions to covers by such artists as Jimi Hendrix, Fela, and Nick Drake.
"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," explains Steven Raphael of Modern Drummer magazine. Of the Scott Amendola Band, Raphael continues: "There is a phenomenal interaction of five distinct musical voices. Amendola and his hand-picked crew take improvisation to new heights." For Amendola, "it's all about improvisation and opening up the music so that anything can happen."
In addition to his own new release, some other recent recordings on which Scott can be heard are: Jenny Scheinman's Live at Yoshi's (Avan), The Tony Furtado Band (Cojema), Jim Campilongo's Live at the Du Nord (Ethic), Noe Venable's No Curses Here (Intuition), Paul Sprawl's Blue Suitcase (Intuition), and Paul Plimley's Safe-Crackers (Victo). Over the past nine years Scott has performed, recorded, and/or toured with Bill Frisell, Dave Liebman, John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Dave Liebman, Jacky Terrasson, Shweta Jhaveri, Robin Holcomb and the Joe Goode Dance Group, Wayne Horvitz, Johnny Griffin, Viktor Krauss, Paul Plimley, Tony Furtado, Jack Walrath, Julian Priester, Sonny Simmons, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Pat Martino, Larry Ochs, Nels Cline, Peter Apfelbaum, Jim Campilongo, Bobby Black, Paul McCandless, Ben Goldberg, Mark Turner, Michael Franti, Primus, Nina Hagen, Phil Lesh, and others.
He has toured extensively throughout Europe, North America, and Australia.
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