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Glenn and Nels in Chicago in February


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Glenn is finally catching a slot at the Immediate Sound gigs at the Hideout on Wednesday. In this case it is Wednesday February 7 with Jeff Parker solo guitar playing the first set and set II with John Corbett guitar Jason Roebke bass and Glenn Kotche drums. This will be improv as most of the Wednesday gigs are.

 

Meanwhile Nels is playing with the Scott Amendola Band also with Jeff Parker (busy guy that Jeff) on February 3 at the Empty Bottle. This is an early show at 7 PM (Stick around and you catch the Dials at 10 for another cover....)

 

LouieB

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Rhett will do his usual act which I enjoy. This other gig is an opportunity to see Glenn under different circumstances in a very small club. He will probably be coming on about 11:15 or so, which means Rhett may be over by then. (where is he playing?? There are no dates on his website.)

 

LouieB

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Rhett will do his usual act which I enjoy. This other gig is an opportunity to see Glenn under different circumstances in a very small club. He will probably be coming on about 11:15 or so, which means Rhett may be over by then. (where is he playing?? There are no dates on his website.)

 

LouieB

a history museum or something like that...

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already got a ticket for the Amendola show. I gotta see what my work schedule will be like on the 8th, before I decide if I'm going to the Hideout.

I guess getting tickets ahead makes sense. It is about the same price, although I have not yet done this.

 

First round on me..... :beer

 

LouieB

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Meanwhile Nels is playing with the Scott Amendola Band also with Jeff Parker (busy guy that Jeff) on February 3 at the Empty Bottle. This is an early show at 7 PM (Stick around and you catch the Dials at 10 for another cover....)

 

LouieB

 

I should be going to that show and I am really psych.

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Purely by luck I found a copy of one of the Scott Amedola albums last night and have played it twice. Really great stuff, it should be a great show. It is much less improv than I expected and the violin and the two guitars are really quite something.

 

LouieB

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hope you have fun. i'd love to be able to see glenn or nels solo!!! one day...one day...
Not solo.....both in other groups....either way it is pretty damn cool. I think the article on tomorrow's show is worth the bandwidth here.

 

LouieB

Amendola's jazz vision crystallizes into a true dream band

 

By Bob Gendron

Special to the Tribune

 

February 2, 2007

 

Scott Amendola is addicted to ideas. The San Francisco-based percussionist gets so stimulated by the blending of sonic possibilities that he is sometimes overwhelmed, and needs to remind himself he's not crazy.

 

"There are times where I've thought maybe I should just quit my music because I like playing with [crooner] Madeleine Peyroux and playing with [guitarist] Nels Cline," says Amendola. "It's like maybe I'm just out of my mind and this doesn't really work, but it does."

 

Formula has never applied to Amendola, who has so many thoughts racing through his head that his words don't always keep pace. In conversation, the timekeeper/composer leapfrogs subjects in the same way his songs shift within a few measures. Since relocating to the Bay Area in the early '90s, Amendola has been a jazz staple, touring and performing with scores of acclaimed artists. And while technically leader of the Scott Amendola Band, when it comes to ensemble playing, he's as liberal as he is creative.

 

Obscured and overshadowed, most drummers yearn for a chance to bask in the spotlight. Not Amendola. Instead, the New Jersey native surrounded himself with four cutting-edge musicians, all but one a bandleader in their own right. Conceived by Amendola as a theoretical construct--he claims he heard sounds in his head, and a particular cast playing them--the quintet is a fantasy come true.

 

There's Cline, the newest Wilco magician who owns hundreds of recording credits, and is a tireless ethic and kaleidoscopic vision; guitarist Jeff Parker, a member of local instrumental-rock icons Tortoise and multiple free-ranging collectives; violinist Jenny Scheinman, an emerging accompanist who has partnered with Bill Frisell, Norah Jones and Peyroux; and bassist John Shifflett, who on his resume lists outings with Peyroux, Kurt Elling, John Zorn and many others.

 

The collective has made only one album, "Believe" (Cryptogramophone), an eclectic, jazz-rooted melange of Afrobeat, avant-garde rock, gypsy folk and traditional balladry that leans on acoustic rhythms, electrified currents and string-based density. Yet because of logistical difficulties, the group has never gigged together, which thrills and concerns Amendola. Two weeks before hitting the road, the looping fanatic was still undecided on whether to bring his techno gadgetry for fear it might clog up the mix.

 

"It'll be interesting because as a trio you have a little room, as a quartet there's less room, and as a quintet there's less room than that," says Amendola.

 

Still, he realizes he has a history with all of the players and gushes at how each individual contributes to the interactive whole.

 

"Jenny, what she brings to the music is lyrical beauty and depth," he explains. "She's got this soaring gorgeous tone, and she has this edge to it too. It sails over things. But then also, she can get in there. She can play percolating parts, and she has that bluegrass thing happening."

 

Amendola describes Shifflett as the hands-off anchor, implicating Cline and Parker as fringe instigators, alchemists whose contrasting techniques are instructively complementary. Cline, who keeps an unfathomably busy schedule and heads to France in advance of the group's three U.S. concerts, enjoys the dynamic wrought by he and Parker's divergent styles.

 

"It's fairly obvious that Jeff has, in spite of how many different sounds he's capable of making, a jazz approach to the guitar," says Cline. "You can hear Charlie Christian and Grant Green in his playing. And my sound is kind of a weird sort of spiky hybrid of jazz elements coming a little more from John McLaughlin or earlier John Abercrombie and maybe John Scofield.

 

"Jeff's feel on the time is also different than mine. He has this very light-in-the-middle feel when he's blowing and I tend to be a bit more edged-out. I mean, I get a little hyper sometimes."

 

Such flurry is a positive, particularly since Amendola's unit both accommodates and welcomes improvisation, noise and color.

 

"Nels is such a giant force," says Amendola. "But then Jeff comes from a little of the hip-hop angle, and he likes to deejay."

 

For Cline, fitting in is a simple matter of spotting and seizing opportunities. "I'm quite often just trying to find a way to be part of the orchestra," he says. "Sometimes there's the matter of finding the right part that's not already written to fit into something."

 

Scott Amendola Band

 

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

 

Where: Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave.

 

Price: $8-$10; 773-276-3600

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i'm sorry to say that i haven't been able to get a hold of any of nels' work and his varying projects. my music store here is very limited. for my birthday, i've decided it's time to splurge on the wilco store. i need to get glenn's albums as well...come on May...get here faster!!!

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lou, i'm still thinking about this one. if i don't go, kris will have a ticket for you. i'll try to decide soon :)
I will certainly take it. PMing my cell phone.

 

I keep worrying it will sell out too, but I am going on faith it won't.

 

LouieB

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I will see you guys there. :) I have to keep remembering that it's early - 7:00.
ACtually I did forget and agreed to go to dinner with some friends, but then one had a slight medical issue and canceled so I was off the hook for that.

 

If anyone has the stamina (not me, I was out shooting a vid last night,) the Dials are playing the late show, which is being dedicated to their drummer who was killed a year ago.

 

LouieB

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Nah, I got more to say....just didn't have time before.

 

The Scott Amendola group was fantastic. Anchored by Scott and his bass player (John Shifflett), along with Jenny Scheinman on violin was great in and of itself, but then add Jeff Parker and Nels Cline on guitars and it was fantastic. Until I had heard the CD last week I didn't know what to expect, figuring it might be something kind of out there, but it wasn't. In fact, despite some excellent improvisation during the numbers, most were well arranged and had clear composition and intent. In fact the band was reading charts, so it was not free jazz. All of them seemed to be having a ball and playing off one another. Nels was spectacular as you would expect. I highly recommend the recent album called Believe, much of which they played Saturday night. There were tunes that sounded like John McLaughlin, Neil Young, and a Thelonius Monk tune that was very well done. It was kind of a mixed bag of concepts and sounds, not totally jazz and certainly not rock.

 

Even though the night was cold, the Empty Bottle filled up pretty good and the audience was warm and very respectful and interested.

 

Wendy..is that better.... :lol

 

LouieB

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