exposed

I was sitting staring at the monitor and doing whatever I was doing at work when I got this text message – “Hey Peak, I’m in town for a gig, wanna come?”. Hells yes! It was Scott Amendola‘s surprise musical visit, subbing a gig on the last minute playing with Marco Benevento. I love Scott. I met him last year in association with Nels Cline Singers. First at the Safari Sam’s in January 2007, and later when I went up the coast with Nels for the Singers’ “micro tour”. 

Marco Benevento, I never met but seen him played with Bobby Previte’s Coalition of The Willing which also included Charlie Hunter, and Skerik – That was at The Mint in May of 2006. I remember Marco because his picture I took was one of my favorites…. and of course, his organ playing was much memorable. This time Marco brought down Scott to sub for Matt Chamberlain? I think? Without hesitation, I immediately got on board to see this. I always am up to catch up with Scott.

I already was supposed to hang out with my Israeli friends this evening. One of them lives here, and the other – his nephew, was visiting. I tried as much as I could to convince them to come with me to the show, but today I learned that when people tell you they ‘like jazz music’ – it’s just a euphemism for “I’m really not critical enough about music to tell you my specific taste…if I have any. Less will I want to get into it with you about any details. For now, it will sound the least shallow to go ahead and say that I like jazz.” So I ended up going to meet up with Scott by myself – which was for the best. GE stinson also showed up. I finally got a chance to talk to him a little bit after the show. GE is a friend of Nels’s . I’ve seen him played once with Nels last year. But that hang at the diner was too fun for too long. When we went back to the parking garage, we found the door had been shut! Standing in front of it like a dork, I couldn’t stop snickering. Well, this would have screwed both me AND Scott both, since I was supposed to take him back to the hotel near the airport (which was far from Largo). His flight was in about 6 hours to get back to San Francisco.

The suspense lasted about 5-10 minutes before we found the garage had a door on the other side through the dark and shady alley. Eternity was the very moment my hand was reaching for that door handle. With my entire being’s worth of conjoining electric circuitry, I was willing for it to be unlocked. And … voila … we are home. whew.

Marco Benevento

Bassist Reed Mathis

Scott Amendola

Marco

Marco Benevento Trio at the Coronet - Largo, LA, CA