Charlie Hunter keeps new jazz in his sights

July 1, 10:16 PMSF Music ExaminerDerk Richardson

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the SF Music Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

(c)2007 Michael Weintrob

Fifteen years ago, when Charlie Hunter, the Broun Fellinis, Alphabet Soup and others were playing the Elbo Room and the Up and Down Club in San Francisco, it seemed that "new jazz" (or nu jazz, or acid jazz) was securing a permanent foothold in local nightlife. But while certain strains (and bands) still crop up in and animate the music scene, shifting demographics, changing tastes and geographic dispersion made "new jazz" just another subset in the Bay Area's motley cultural life.

Hunter, a former member of Michael Franti's Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, became a new jazz favorite, known for his facility on his Novax seven- and eight-string guitars and his ability to emulate the sound of a Hammond organ (playing through a classic Leslie speaker). But he also became part of the new jazz diaspora, moving to New York City, where Bay Area transplants have included trumpeter Steven Bernstein, drummer Kenny Wollesen, accordionist Rob Burger, saxophonists Jessica Jones and Peter Apfelbaum, guitarist Adam Levy and others.

This week, with more than a dozen albums under his own name, including several on the prestigious Blue Note jazz label, Hunter (hailing now from Montclair, New Jersey) returns to his roots, bringing a new variation on the original Charlie Hunter Trio back to San Francisco for a show at the Great American Music Hall—a fundraiser for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, with local singer-songwriter Bhi Bhiman opening.

The 41-year-old guitarist, a star on jam-band scene, is an irrepressible collaborator whose projects have included T.J. Kirk, Garage a Trois (with drummer Stanton Moore and saxophonist Skerik) and the duo Groundtruther with drummer Bobby Previte (and a different third member on each recording). "When Charlie and I [first] played together," Previte told me a while back when they were touring together in Previte's Coalition of the Willing, "it was enlightening. ... In Charlie we've got the bass player and the guitar player."

Indeed, because he plays bass lines on the lower strings of custom-built guitar simultaneously with chords and lead runs on the upper strings, Hunter can fill more than one role in his bands. And it will no doubt be enlightening to hear him play the funky, blues-rock-tinged instrumental jazz of his most recent CD, Mistico, with keyboardist Erik Deutsch and drummer Tony Mason. For certain, it will be new.