Todd Sickafoose is an American jazz and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 bassist

Bassist

A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 originally from the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

 who now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

He is best known for playing bass with Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...

, but he has also led his own group called, "Todd Sickafoose's Blood Orange".

Sickafoose has been a member of the bands of Jenny Scheinman

Jenny Scheinman

Jenny Scheinman is an accomplished violinist. Renowned as a jazz violinist, she has credits with artists in many genres. She has collaborated and played with Linda Perry, Norah Jones, Nels Cline, Lou Reed, Ani Difranco, Bruce Cockburn, Aretha Franklin, Lucinda Williams, Bono, and Bill Frisell and...

, Scott Amendola

Scott Amendola

Scott Amendola is an American jazz drummer from the San Francisco Bay Area. His styles include jazz, blues, groove, rock and new music. He is considered central to the Bay Area music scene....

 and Noe Venable

Noe Venable

Noe Venable is an experimental folk/pop singer-songwriter. She has earned a loyal fan base in her native San Francisco, in part through frequently performing in small, intimate venues...

. He has also performed and recorded with Don Byron

Don Byron

Don Byron is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. He primarily plays clarinet, but has also used bass clarinet and saxophones....

, Trey Anastasio

Trey Anastasio

Trey Anastasio is an American guitarist, composer, and vocalist most noted for his work with the rock band Phish...

, Nels Cline

Nels Cline

Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...

, Ron Miles

Ron Miles

Ron Miles is an American trumpeter, cornetist and composer.-Career:Miles moved to Denver, Colorado at the age of 11 and attended Denver East High School. Ron went on to study music at the University of Denver and the Manhattan School of Music . He is among Denver's most prominent jazz musicians...

, Myra Melford

Myra Melford

Myra Melford is a jazz pianist and composer. In recent years, Melford has begun playing the harmonium as well as piano.Melford grew up in the Chicago area...

, Adam Levy

Adam Levy

Adam Levy is an accomplished jazz guitarist and singer-songwriter. Levy has recorded with Norah Jones, Tracy Chapman, Sex Mob, and Amos Lee, and has released several solo albums as well. is his latest....

, Skerik

Skerik

Skerik is an American saxophonist from Seattle, Washington. Performing on the tenor and baritone saxophone, often with electronics and loops, Skerik is a pioneer in a playing style that has been dubbed saxophonics. He is a founding member of Critters Buggin, Garage a Trois and Skerik's Syncopated...

, Stanton Moore

Stanton Moore

Stanton Moore is a drummer raised in Metairie, Louisiana. Most widely known as a founding member of Galactic, Moore has also pursued a solo recording career and recorded with bands as diverse as jazz-funk keyboardist Robert Walter and heavy metal act Corrosion of Conformity...

, Bobby Previte

Bobby Previte

Robert "Bobby" Previte is a drummer, composer and bandleader. Previte earned a B.A. in Economics at the University at Buffalo, where he also studied percussion. He moved to New York City in 1979, and became active in the city's thriving jazz and experimental music scenes...

, Will Bernard

Will Bernard

Will Bernard is a guitarist and band leader from the San Francisco Bay Area, now living in Brooklyn, New York. He has led the Will Bernard Band, Will Bernard Trio, Will Bernard 4-tet, and Motherbug....

, Jessica Lurie

Jessica Lurie

Jessica Lurie is an American composer, performance artist and woodwind player, originally hailing from Seattle and now living in Brooklyn, New York....

, Erin McKeown

Erin McKeown

Erin McKeown is an American multi-instrumentalist and folk-rock singer/songwriter.McKeown began her career in the folk scene. She released her first album, Monday Morning Cold, on her own label , travelling throughout New England while still a student at Brown University in order to promote the...

, Gina Leishman, Carla Bozulich

Carla Bozulich

Carla Bozulich is an American musician based in Los Angeles, known for her work as the lead singer, lyricist and founder of both The Geraldine Fibbers and and as a founding member of Ethyl Meatplow. Her 2006 album, Evangelista, was released by Constellation Records, that label's first release by a...

, Etienne de Rocher

Etienne de Rocher

Etienne de Rocher is a Berkeley, California based singer songwriter who plays a unique style of indie rock.-External links:****...

, The Clear, James Carney

James Carney

James Patrick Carney was a noted Irish Celtic scholar.He was born in Portlaoise, County Laois and was educated at the Christian Brothers school in Synge Street, Dublin...

, Erik Deutsch, Shane Endsley, Tony Furtado

Tony Furtado

Tony Furtado is an American banjo player and slide guitar, and singer/songwriter.player of Portuguese and Italian heritage who was born in Oakland, California...

, Darol Anger

Darol Anger

-Career:Darol Anger entered popular music at the age of 21 as a founding member of The David Grisman Quintet. Anger played fiddle to David Grisman's mandolin in The David Grisman Quintet's 1977 debut. He co-founded the Turtle Island String Quartet with David Balakrishnan in 1985 and performed,...

, Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.- Early life and the Bowl of Fire :...

 and John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

.

At the age of 13 Sickafoose began playing double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

 after seeing Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger...

 perform. He later studied with Charlie Haden

Charlie Haden

Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...

 and then with Mel Powell

Mel Powell

Mel Powell was a jazz pianist and composer of classical music.Mel Epstein was born to Russian Jewish parents, Milton Epstein and Mildred Mark Epstein, and began playing piano as a child. He performed jazz professionally in New York City as a teenager...

 at California Institute of the Arts

California Institute of the Arts

The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...

. He moved to Brooklyn, New York's "vibrant music scene," joining many musical friends that were residing there. Sickafoose began playing with Ani DiFranco after opening for her on tour in 2002 and 2004.

Critic Steve Greenlee of JazzTimes

JazzTimes

JazzTimes is a magazine that dates back to Radio Free Jazz, a publication founded in 1970 by Ira Sabin when he was operating a record store in Washington, DC. It was originally a newsletter designed to update shoppers on the latest jazz releases and provide jazz radio programmers with a means of...

states Sickafoose's 2008 release Tiny Resistors is one of that "year’s most compelling listens." The CD also received positive reviews from NY Times and USA Today.

External links

• Official site