SCOTT AMENDOLA

Scott Amendola first started learning how to drum at the age of nine, but he began practicing even earlier than that. Grabbing any household item that gave a decent resonance, Scott enjoyed pounding on pots and pans as a young child.

Although at first he was musically inclined towards the rock and the heavy metal scene, he eventually played with the great jazz guitarist, Tony Gottuso (Nat “King” Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Frank Sinatra)—who also happened to be his grandfather.

His appetite freshly wetted for jazz, Scott found his way to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was there that he began to break down his playing and develop his own style. Twelve hours of practice was a normal occurrence. During this time, Scott auditioned to be the drummer for a “mainstream" band. While preparing for the audition, he began to realize that it was not the type of drumming that he wanted to do. Although he went through with the audition, he "started scraping cymbals and stopping the beat and doing all this stuff they weren't used to." The unique playing style didn’t get him an offer, but it made him realize that he wanted to pursue jazz drumming as a career.

After graduating from Berklee, Amendola decided to move out west. He ended up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he remains to this day. He fell in love with the creativity and collaboration that the Bay Area had to offer. Though he initially fell on hard times—he was delivering bread in the mornings and trying to play gigs in the evenings—slowly but surely, Scott gained recognition within the local jazz community.

His career took off from there. Amendola met Charlie Hunter, and together they formed the group T.J. Kirk. Their musical endeavors led to a Grammy nomination in 1996. More recently, Scott has done extensive work with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline. Amendola credits Cline with convincing him to incorporate the use of an effects pedal board into his drumming.

Amendola is constantly pushing limits, not only of his own playing, but of the idea of music in general. He recently performed an organ and drums only version of Duke Ellington's “Far East Suite.” Scott continues to be both a frontman and artist in many ensembles.