Ben Goldberg, Todd Sickafoose, & Scott Amendola play the music of Thelonious Monk & More!

Ben Goldberg clarinets
Todd Sickafoose acoustic bass
Scott Amendola drums/percussion/electronics

Scott Amendola, Ben Goldberg, and Todd Sickafoose have been playing music together in various forms for the nearly 30 years. Together as a trio they bring virtuosic mastery of their instruments, along with band sensibility to create a playful, and thoughtful musical experience. Thelonious Monk’s music has captured their collective heart ever since they all heard him as young upstarts. Along with original music, the trio will journey through all kinds of moods, and musical landscapes.

“If Scott Amendola didn't exist, the San Francisco music scene would have to invent him.” Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian . For Scott Amendola, the drum kit isn’t so much an instrument as a musical portal. An ambitious composer, savvy bandleader and capaciously creative foil for some of the world’s most inventive musicians, Amendola applies his rhythmic virtuosity toa vast array of settings. His closest musical associates include guitarists, Nels Cline, Jeff Parker, Charlie Hunter, Hammond B-3 organist Wil Blades, violinists Regina Carter and Jenny Scheinman, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, players who have each forged a singular path within and beyond the realm of jazz.

Todd Sickafoose is a Tony and Grammy award-winning composer, producer, orchestrator, bandleader and double bassist. He produced and co-arranged all three albums of the Broadway hit Hadestown and also produced Anaïs Mitchell’s album Young Man in America. Since 2004, Sickafoose has recorded and performed internationally with artist/activist Ani DiFranco. Straddling the worlds of folk, indie rock, jazz and chamber music, his own band Tiny Resistors has performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival, Stern Grove Festival, Angel City Jazz Festival and been featured on many “Best-Of” lists including the Village Voice and JazzTimes. Writing for Tiny Resistors, he recently created Bear Proof, a long-form chamber jazz hybrid commissioned by the Doris Duke Foundation.

Clarinetist / composer Ben Goldberg grew up in Denver. He was a pupil of the eminent clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo and studied with Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano. Since 1992, when his group New Klezmer Trio "kicked open the door for radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music" (SF Chronicle), Ben has shaped a career through curiosity and experimentation. The New York Times says Ben’s music “conveys a feeling of joyous research into the basics of polyphony and collective improvising.” Downbeat Magazine has twice named him Rising Star Clarinetist.