Charlie Hunter’s hybrid jazz
by Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., March 23, 2001)- It takes a particularly open-minded sensibility to tie together musical strands as disparate as grunge-rockers Nirvana, reggae pioneer Bob Marley, bop great Thelonious Monk and pop-rocker Steve Miller. But for guitarist Charlie Hunter, who interprets the music of all these artists in addition to composing his own tunes, these seemingly unrelated musicians are all of a piece.

“I had the advantage of growing up in a hip household listening to Robert Johnson, Leadbelly and Johnny Cash, and when I grew older I listened to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk,” said the Bay Area native, speaking in a recent phone interview from his current home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“I feel like I’m a real product of my generation. I listen to all the stuff that people of my generation listened to -- Stevie Wonder, the Beatles -- and I love that stuff,” said Hunter, who performs with his quartet at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown on Saturday, March 24, at 8. As a Blue Note recording artist, Hunter, 32, is typically thought of as a jazz guitarist. But Hunter is that rare recording and performing artist who transcends genre. In his case, that means he wins praise in the jazz press while also playing to a wider following of young people, rock fans who don’t usually go in for “jazz.”

“Coming from all these different places, I lose the dogma of all those different places and try to make something happen that’s about me, that’s honest,” said Hunter. “The byproduct is something that people of my generation can relate to.”

In particular, Hunter gets grouped in with the burgeoning “groove” or “jam-rock” scene of bands who play to a crowd of post-Grateful Dead neo-hippies.

“The audience for Phish and Moe and those types of rock bands are kind of like a gateway for people like me and Medeski, Martin and Wood,” said Hunter. “They’re like the first stop for these suburban kids trying to break out of being corporate media victms. It’s the gatway for them as far as a counterculture is concerned, “When they relate to bands like that it creates a template to relate to me, and after me then probably they’ll be able to relate to someone like Thelonious Monk or Roland Kirk. The jam-band thing is really not a musical statement; it’s more an audience demographic. The audince is so ready to be turned on to new stuff, and even hungry for new stuff. It’s a great thing to be a part of.”

Hunter is known as much for the unusual instrument he plays as for his omnivorous musical appetite. Early on, he decided that six strings were not enough for him, and he had someone design him an eight-stringed instrument, combining bass and guitar.

“I was into Joe Pass and other guitarists who pushed the boundaries of the guitar’s limitations to make it into this pocket orchestra, and I just felt like I wanted to take it to the next level after that. From there I felt like that was the direction I wanted to go in and I felt like that link in the chain.”

Typically, a Hunter ensemble doesn’t include a bassist. Seemingly defying the physical limits of his instrument, Hunter provides both bass guitar and rhythm and lead guitar duties simultaneously.

Hunter admits that it isn’t easy. “The physical part is hard,” he said. “I use standard guitar technique on the right hand, but it’s a lot harder to execute.

“With the left hand, it’s a matter of juggling. At any given space and time they can be in different places, making mind over matter happen. “The real thing is to try to be musical. I listen to drummers for the rhythmic independence. It takes a lot more time and effort to reach the level. It’s an extremely time consuming thing that I think I’ve misguidedly dedicated myself to.”

Hunter is constantly recasting his ensemble. On his 1995 album, “Bing Bing Bing!” he used a guitar-saxophone-drum trio. For “Natty Dread,” his 1996 re-creation of Bob Marley’s landmark album, he added a second saxophone. For 1998’s “Return of the Candyman” he retired the horns and added vibist Stefon Harris. The next year he resurfaced in a duo with drummer Leon Parker, and for last year’s eponymous album he put together a sextet including saxophone, trombone and three percussionists.

For the Clark concert, Hunter will be joined by Chris Lovejoy on congas, Stephen Chopek on drums and John Ellis on saxophone. Hunter rarely uses a keyboardist, either, because he has found a way to replicate the sound of an organ with his guitar. Indeed, an unwary listener could easily mistake the melody lines on several tunes on Hunter’s recent album for keyboards.

“I was influenced by keyboard players,” said Hunter. “Definitely from checking out organ players that sound comes through. Trying to have a conceptual tonal palette that you can draw on and pull things off to serve the purpose of the tune, you can use different permutations of each thing within the construct of one tune -- have the organ sound but really play with a lot of care to what’s going on rhythmically.

“That’s the cool thing about being influenced by lots of things, to hybridize them to your own sensibilities.”

Hunter said that other than a brief foray at community college in Oakland, where he had a great instructor for music theory, he is pretty much a self-taught musician who has learned most of what he knows on the bandstand.

Hunter credits the Bay Area itself as a great influence and teacher. “Oakland and Berkeley historically have been areas from where musicians came,” said Hunter. “There was so much music happening when I was growing up. That area had -- not just was it so multicultural -- a welcoming community. People from all over the world were settling there. “It was a great place to live then. Oakland always had this great tradition of soul and R&B, people like Sly Stone, Larry Graham, Tower of Power. And Berkeley had a great jazz program that my friends were part of.”

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 23, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]