Two of the CDs that were on heavy rotation in my CD-player this past fall were brand new groovy releases from two notable young jazz/fusionist/call-it-whatever-you-want-to-call-it bands. The first one was Medeski, Martin and Wood and their new "Shack Man" album. The trio released an album with infectious rhythms and catchy tunes. It's basically what they have been doing for years in their live shows/jams but recorded in a 60-minutes CD! The second, "Ready...Set...Shango!", by the Charlie Hunter Quartet, a chilled out guy who's always seems to be on the verge of cracking a joke.

The 28-year old Charlie Hunter comes from San Fransisco and he is one of those talented young musicians who try to stretch the limits of jazz music. This is evidenced by the uniqueness of his instrument, an eight string guitar that acts as a guitar and bass at the same time. Another unique feature is the clear and original identity that they establish with their "Ready...Set...Shango!" release, a sophisticated, spontaneous and contemporary jazz album that allows anybody to "get into the groove". Shango is an imaginary type of dance for Charlie Hunter and the invitation is open to everybody!

This is Hunter's third release but the first one recorded with a Quartet. His first solo release was three years ago under the independent independent Mammoth records and his sophomore release was with Blue Note, titled "Bing, Bing, Bing!". It seems that he likes the exclamation marks in his album titles! Both of these albums were done with a Trio. Today his Quartet features guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter, the new member Calder Spanier on alto saxophone, Scott Amendola on drums (also a member of TJ Kirk, you'll read about it later!, ed) and Ken Brook on tenor sax, another new member who replaced long standing bandmate Dave Ellis. With this Quartet format, Charlie Hunter and each of the other players, are able to do much more and create a richer and room-filling sound. This new release was inspired from the music of Cannonball Adderley, Big John Patton and Eddie Harris, the band claims, but was definitely updated with a modern twist and a pleasant vibe. Their music soars with a very different type of individuality.

Music had always been around Charlie Hunter when he was growing up. His mother repaired guitars and, consequently, she got her kid into playing the instrument. His father was playing the banjo professionally but Charlie Hunter mostly grew up with his mother. He started playing guitar at the age of 14 and since then he's been stuck to it! His was hired to play for the agit-rap group of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy in 1992 but Charlie Hunter was playing music professionaly long before this. " I started playing guitar as a street musician in Europe ", he explains. " I played there for many years, and that's how I started ". Which countries, I do ask. " The ones with the many rich white people ", he says and laughs. " England, France and Germany. I lived there for three years on and off. I lived in motels, the streets, everywhere ". Does he like the travelling that is involved in being a musician ? " Well, sometimes I do like it, and sometimes I prefer being home. I like to play for different people all the time and therefore I have to drive long distances. We sometimes spend five months on the tour with the Quartet, this is a lot of time. We were touring the whole summer, we were in Europe, Canada and the States ". Moreover, the man with the sneaky fingers has touring commitments to fulfill with his other band, T.J.Kirk. "T.J.Kirk is more of a democracy", he tells me. Then The Charlie Hunter Quartet is more of a ... dictatorship ? He laughs as he agrees.

T.J.Kirk is Charlie Hunter with his 8-string axe, Scott Amendola on drums, and John Scott and Will Bernard on guitars. The name comes from the initials of Thelonious Monk, James Brown and Rahsaan Roland Kirk cause the band covers their stuff. These covers, a mixture of groovy jazz and funk, are also all that they play! T.J.Kirk released a new album on Warner this September and the band is ready to hit the road. " I'm going to do a couple of weeks of touring with T.J Kirk and then I'll be on the road again with the quartet and Medeski, Martin and Wood ". I was surprised! This is a tour not to be missed ! " The studio is very different than playing live ", he replies when I ask him where he enjoys playing most. " It's all playing for me, it's just two different aspects of playing. In the studio you try to get your absolute best thing, all the time. Ideally you should be able to do the same live ".

Charlie Hunter lived most of his life in San Fransisco. He now lives in Berkeley (" the hippies have been here for ever but nowdays there are hippies everywhere ", he once told me when describing his hometown) and when he was younger he took lessons from Northern California guitar guru Joe Satriani. " Don't write this ", he interrupts me, " It was not unusual because everybody else in Berkeley also did! He was the teacher here and he had 200 hundred students and I was just one of them! He was a great teacher, but I don't think that he influenced me in the way that I play ". Moreover, Charlie Hunter plays a unique instrument, an 8-string guitar with three bass strings going to a different amplifier! Charlie accomplishes the tasks of a rhythm guitar player and a bass player at the same time but he doesn't get paid twice (" Sometimes, I don't even get paid once ", he later confesses). " A lot of other guitar players have already been doing it on a 6-string guitar. I just decided to take the next step, and the next step was to make it an 8-string guitar that can be guitar and bass at the same time ", he says with a hefty dose of confidence. " It's a real challenge because there is so much more work for me to do as far as getting my instrument together and being a complete player on it ". He has already achieved quite a bit! He can play harmonic guitar lines that sound like an organ through a leslie speaker and give the rhythm through his bass lines ('The Shango Pt.3', '911' from his new album). He can also stay strictly be-bop as he did when his trio covered Nirvana's 'Come As You Are' ("Bing, Bing, Bing" album, Blue Note, 1995). " I'm not a big Nirvana fan or anything ", he exclaims, " but I like this tune in particular, it is a good tune ".

" Why should I try to be another 6-string guitar player? ", he questions me when I ask him if he would ever consider concentrating only on guitar. " There are millions of guitar players and millions of bass players out there, I want to do something different and that's why I do what I do. Hopefully some different music will come out of it ". Does he believe that an instrument itself can give a new dimension to music? " When you play a different instrument then you have a different attitude towards it. I believe that if there were more people playing 8-string guitar they'd be able to do really neat stuff with it ", he adds. " Maybe one day I will make an 8-string acoustic, they don't make any yet ", he concludes. Maybe one day he might decide to move out of San Fransisco, somewhere on the East coast, where jazz music is more popular and the whole scene is hot and moves fast. " There's great music in San Fransisco too ", he interrupts me. " There's a lot of jazz music on the West coast and all different kinds of music happening. It doesn't matter if it is jazz or not because the musicans of the world are like a big family. Every musician tries the same journey regardless of the music he plays. So, here in San Fransisco we have all different kinds of music. Most of the musicians live in Berkeley so it's pretty nice living here. Finally, I don't think that I'd be able to live in New York, I like it at home !".

He has another reason not to move to the East coast, there's not much of a reggae thing going on out there and Charlie Hunter and his Quartet enjoy reggae music enough to record a reggae album! The Quartet's next release -sometime in early 1997- will be a remake of Bob Marley's "Natty Dread". Charlie has more to say about it... " It's the stuff we do, it's like a Shango record by Bob Marley! We do track by track the album, we all like the original album, it has very good songs, it's good music, it has the groove ". The album will be released through Blue Note in a couple of months and will also feature a new tenor sax player since Dave Ellis decided to leave and do his own thing. Ken Brooke is the new tenor player and he splits his time between the Quartet and a band called Alphabet. As far as their forthcoming album goes, it is a part of a series that Blue Note will release in the near future. " They have a few more of their bands that are doing their own version of their favorite album ", Charlie explains. " I don't know what the others are doing, I just know that ours is better! ", he adds and jokes. The band does covers during their live shows too. " We usually do some covers in our shows, we always have something new in our sleeves to pull out and play ".

It's not only the music that exhibits a big diversity in Charlie Hunter's Quartet, it's also the audience itself! You can see all kind of different faces, and different ages, in a given show the band performs. They once shared the second stage in Lollapalloza (1995) but this was not a pleasant experience for the band. " Well the response was ok, it's hard to get 16 years old kids get interested in jazz music, especially when they have all their favorite bands playing at the other stage! They want to hear those bands, they don't want to hear us! ", says Charlie with no regrets.

©: 1996, OnRamp, Think New Ideas. (published by www.metaverse.com)