You hum to a melody or tap your feet to a rhythm, then, in your mind’s eye, you take the leap of faith and cross the bridge of a pop song. The bridge is that section that connects other parts of the song and can be placed anywhere in the song except the beginning and end. It offers variety and contrast to a piece by changing the mood, tempo or chord progression. For the Scott Amendola-Ben Goldberg-Todd Sickafoose Trio, which plays at The Shedd on Wednesday, Oct. 23, the bridge offers creativity all its own. The trio, all long-term friends, took the bridge work of the jazz great Thelonious Monk to compose work for the album Here to There, available Oct. 25 on the Eugene-based Secret Hatch Records. Amendola on drums and Goldberg on clarinet had previously played for the group Plays Monk, so when Sickafoose on double-bass was recruited in 2022, continuing the Monk theme — this time focusing on the unique sounds and rhythms of the bridges Monk composed — seemed obvious. The result are pieces such as “In Walked” (drawn from Monk’s “In Walked Bud”), “Interospection” (from the song “Introspection”), “Self Evident” (from the song “Evidence”) and “Epistrophy” (from the song “Sad Trophy”).

The Scott Amendola-Ben Goldberg-Todd Sickafoose Trio performs 7:30 pm Wednesday, Oct. 23, at The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, 285 East Broadway. Tickets are $24 to $32 and can be purchased at TheShedd.org.