Tin Hat is an acoustic chamber music group currently based in San Francisco, California. Their music combines many genres of music, including jazz, southern blues, bluegrass, neoclassical, eastern European folk music, and avant-garde.
Since its formation in 1997, the original Tin Hat Trio has often expanded its trio format by inviting other musicians to join them. All of their CDs feature guests, among them Tom Waits, Mike Patton and Willie Nelson, as well as friends like clarinetist Ben Goldberg and harpist Zeena Parkins. Parkins appears on 2002's The Rodeo Eroded and 2004's Book of Silk and has performed live with the trio as the resident sound effects artist in their live music/silent film projects. Goldberg has been a frequent guest of Tin Hat Trio and contributed to both Memory Is an Elephant and The Rodeo Eroded.
When founding member Rob Burger left the trio in late 2004, Mark Orton and Carla Kihlstedt replaced him with both Goldberg and Parkins, presenting a new, though closely related, ensemble-the Tin Hat Quartet-for two short concert tours in the U.S. in January and April 2005.