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Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Healdsburg, Sonoma County, California
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Tin Hat (no longer "Trio") may do full album with Willy Nelson
>>There are rumors that the group is getting ready to collaborate on a full-length orchestral album with Willie Nelson. (``Nothing's been signed yet, so I can't confirm that,'' Orton says.) The red-headed stranger made a guest appearance singing ``Willow Weep for Me'' on Tin Hat's exquisite 2002 Americana-drenched Ropeadope album ``The Rodeo Eroded.''<<
It appears that while Ben Goldberg has stuck with the new group, Zeena Parkins has been replaced in the regular lineup by Ara Anderson on trumpet, glockenspiel and pump organ. Zeena's still expected to participate in future projects, though.
Here's the full article from the San Jose Mercury News:
Fri, Nov. 25, 2005
A larger Hat
CHAMBER/JAZZ ENSEMBLE BECOMES A QUARTET, LOSING PART OF NAME BUT GAINING FLEXIBILITY
By Andrew Gilbert
Special to the Mercury News
The name Tin Hat Trio has a wonderfully alliterative rhythm, with the concise syllables marked by the irregular tapping beat of the three t's.
So it's with some sadness that I report that the band has dropped one-third of its moniker and will be known henceforth as Tin Hat.
But what the group has lost in its truncated handle it has gained in personnel, expanding to a quartet that constantly threatens to further multiply. The new version of the eclectic band, which brings a chamber-group sensibility to its amalgam of jazz, blues, tango and contemporary classical music, makes its California debut Thursday at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, followed by a Dec. 2 performance at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.
In place of founding pianist and accordionist Rob Burger, who decided to devote himself full time to his burgeoning career as a sideman in New York City, guitarist Mark Orton and violinist Carla Kihlstedt have recruited clarinetist Ben Goldberg and Ara Anderson on trumpet, glockenspiel and pump organ.
Goldberg, a dynamic force on the Bay Area's improvised-music scene for more than two decades, first made his mark in the mid-1980s with the New Klezmer Trio, which opened up territory later explored by John Zorn and Don Byron (both of whom attained greater notice for their efforts). In recent years, Goldberg has devoted much of his performing time to Plays Monk, a cooperative trio with drummer Scott Amendola and bassist Devin Hoff dedicated to the knotty music of modern jazz legend Thelonious Monk.
``Rob is such a difficult person to replace,'' says Orton, noting that members of the original triumvirate had known each and played together since they were teenagers. ``But Ben was here from the early days. He actually participated in our first-ever concert at Hotel Utah in 1994. He has the crossover jazz chops that Rob has and can skirt these different languages of jazz, classical and Eastern European traditions. With the contra alto, he's got a lower range than the acoustic bass, which opens up things for me, since I'm often responsible for covering the bass range.''
Anderson, who's best known for his work on the Tom Waits albums ``Blood Money'' and ``Alice,'' has made a powerful impression on the Bay Area scene in recent years with his eccentric bands Iron & the Albatross and Boostamonte! When Tin Hat's producer, Hans Wendl, heard Iron & the Albatross at a San Francisco club, he realized Anderson might fit in perfectly with Tin Hat's wide-open aesthetic.
``Tom Waits often says Ara is his favorite musician,'' Orton notes. ``He's a multi-instrumentalist with a great sense of rhythm. He's bringing in all these interesting ideas, and he can maintain some of the Tin Hat sound.''
It's not only through personnel changes that Tin Hat is entering exciting new territory. There are rumors that the group is getting ready to collaborate on a full-length orchestral album with Willie Nelson. (``Nothing's been signed yet, so I can't confirm that,'' Orton says.) The red-headed stranger made a guest appearance singing ``Willow Weep for Me'' on Tin Hat's exquisite 2002 Americana-drenched Ropeadope album ``The Rodeo Eroded.''
More immediately, Tin Hat is collaborating with the Pickle Family Circus on the new production ``Circumstance'' (Dec. 13 through New Year's Day, Cowell Theater, San Francisco).
Each musician has a thriving solo career as well. Orton, who lives in Portland, Ore., has been working as a film composer, gaining recognition with his score for Miguel Arteta's ``The Good Girl,'' with Jennifer Aniston. He has written the scores for the documentary ``The Real Dirt on Farmer John,'' in theaters next month, and the Alan Cummings-Ned Beatty feature ``The Sweet Land.''
Kihlstedt, who will soon be moving from Oakland to New York, has spent much of the past three years on the road with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, the outrageously creative art-rock band she founded with former Idiot Flesh provocateurs Nils Frykdahl and Dan Rathbun. No outfit better showcases her rock-star charisma that her own band, Two Foot Yard.
In many ways, dropping the ``Trio'' merely acknowledges that the group has been a permeable ensemble from the beginning. On the band's second album, ``Helium'' (Angel, 2000), Tin Hat expanded its growing list of instruments to include prepared piano, dobro, banjo and marxophone, and it enlisted the services of singer Tom Waits for the title track. On ``The Rodeo Eroded,'' the band dived deep into the heartland, immersing itself in blues, bluegrass and old-time country, joined by the brilliant harpist Zeena Parkins and tuba player Bryan Smith (as well as Medeski Martin and Wood's Billy Martin and Phish's Jon Fishman on percussion).
On last year's heartbreaking ``Book of Silk,'' the group effectively transformed itself into a quintet, with Parkins and Smith perfectly meshing with Tin Hat's avant chamber aesthetic. Both musicians will be involved in many of the group's future projects.
``We're still a chamber group, but we have even more flavors in it now,'' Orton says. ``And at times it ends up sounding like a miniature orchestra.''
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