Hunter's Point
Charlie Hunter Has Jazz's Future In His Hands
By James Oliver Cury

Charlie Hunter is a hard man to please. You'd think he has it all: the jazz life, the Blue Note recording contract, a good degree of fame, a loving wife, and a career that allows him to dabble with reggae, funk, soul, pop - whatever he wants. And now he's got New York; Hunter recently left the Bay Area to seek out the country's jazz nerve center. But he wants more. Hunter wants to be a better guitar player, he wants to play with the best musicians around, he wants record companies to support their artists, and he wants those artists to tour the country and spread the word that jazz is alive and well. Actually, that's not entirely true. Hunter does want fellow musicians to share their talents and set foot outside of New York once in a while, but he knows damn well that jazz is not alive or well. It doesn't sell, it hasn't had a creative growth spurt in years and no one except jazzheads in a few major cities seem to care. Despite his sincere humility, the 30-year-old Hunter is on a solo mission to change all that.

It starts with the music. "The philosophy of this whole record is kind of inspired by a hip hop record," he says referring to his new record for Blue Note and fourth album overall, The Return of the Candyman. "I was inspired by the way hip hop guys like Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang make records. They kinda make these whole theater pieces with little snippets interspersed here and there. I didn't want it to just be a jazz record. I wanted it to be people with jazz sensibilities trying to make an organic hip hop record."

What appeals most to Hunter - outside of jazz - seems to be hip hop. He's fascinated by the potential: Hip hop artists are the rare few in the last 20 years to have created a whole new music, proudly borrowing from all their influences, getting people to dance and making money in the process. Hunter has publicly admitted that he would like, even hopes, that some major hip hop artist would sample his work. "Man I hope they do, I need the money!" he exclaims. " I would be honored if someone really good sampled me. If Tribe Called Quest or someone like that wanted to sample my shit. Because they're not just gonna sample it and have it be the whole tune - like Puff Daddy or anything. ... They take old found music and make it into a new thing so you can identify a lot of the music in there, but the way that they organize it sounds like a new piece of music."

Never one to settle with one sound, Hunter's famous for the forays into other music. He's been a member of two very different influential groups: the political hip hop group Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (with Spearhead's Michael Franti) and the jazz-funk band T.J. Kirk (which explored the works of Thelonious Monk, James Brown and Rahsaan Roland Kirk). As a solo artist, he's covered Nirvana's "Come as You Are" and last year released an entire reworking of Bob Marley's Natty Dread album. So why all this diversity?

"When I was younger and really getting into jazz," he says, "I was only listening to jazz, like that's the only music that mattered. Like I can't hear anything but Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery right now. Everything else is crap. As I grew older, I realized I could learn from all different music. The older I get, the more I realize how important all these other musics are in what I do."

Now, with Return of the Candyman, Hunter has reinvented himself again. Most noticeably, he's ditched the horns, written markedly shorter songs and added a vibraphonist. "The idea for it came about when I was on tour with my last group," he explains. "I had been playing with horns for so long that I really just wanted to try something different, something that allowed me a little diagonal and horizontal and vertical movement. As opposed to just your basic jazz thing. ... With this new configuration, I can move in all kinds of directions at one time."

The new configuration is his new band, Pound for Pound. Hunter's worked with Scott Amendola (drums) many times before and decided to recruit two highly recognized musicians: Bay Area percussionist John Santos and New York vibes player Stefan Harris. These guys are so sought after that they can't join Hunter on the road; they're too busy doing other projects. Harris, for example, has been out on the road with Joe Henderson and Wynton Marsalis. But that didn't stop Hunter; he just assembled a New York-based touring band including vibes player Monte Croft and drummer Willard Dyson. "No slouches," says Hunter.

All these varying lineups should help "move" Hunter in all kinds of directions, but he's always the one in control. "It's mostly me and I just point 'em in the direction ... but I like for their to be room for criticism. Musicians are not just robots. If you choose to play this kind of music, you choose to have a conception of your own. If you have someone with a conception and a way of thinking about music, you may as well use it."

Some may find Hunter's conceptions to come out of left field. Check out the cover tune he included on the new CD - possibly the least hip tune imaginable: Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle." How'd he come up with this? "We were at a gig in North Hampton and we said we would take requests from the audience. And someone requested 'Fly Like and Eagle' and [John Coltrane's] 'Giant Steps.' Both are just preposterous requests. So we decided to do both of them at the same time, or in one arrangement. And I started doing it and realized it's a pretty good tune for what it is. The way we played it was ironic or something - playing it close to the original. Scott put that go-go beat on top of it. So we said, 'Why not?'"

Such risk-taking has always been Hunter's triumph, enabling him to recognize talent where others may not. "Steve Miller is the corniest motherfucker ever," says Hunter. "But you know his production was killing. His guitar playing was really fucking good. And his rhythm section on that cut is killing. That is badass. I remember listening to that on my transistor radio when I was eight years old and being blown away, especially by the intro.

"I'm not gonna win any medals for being a traditional jazz guy," says Hunter, "So why don't I do stuff that I think is fun or that I enjoy doing or that I think is important?" Therein lies Hunter's raison d'etre. To go beyond traditional jazz, to bridge the gaps between jazz and funk and soul and reggae. And to appeal to a wider audience. Not because people should like jazz, but because jazz should be fun and experimental, growing into new forms rather than retreading old territory.

That explains why he plays the eight-string guitar, why he dabbles with so many music styles, and why he's moved to New York finally. "There's so many great musicians that I've wanted to play with out here. And be kicked around the block by and beaten up and thrown down the stairs. That kind of thing. I just had to come out here and give it a try. I had grown up in Berkeley and I felt like it was time to leave; time to leave the nest. ... Here, my career can go so much farther, and I play with so many more people. I'm more inspired, and I can become a better player. ... You know, you just walk down the street and run into someone and then the next thing you know, you got a gig - or a recording gig. In the Bay Area, you can walk all day and all night and never get anything."

Hunter certainly knows the Bay Area. He grew up in Oakland and Berkeley in houses where mom repaired guitars for a living. Ironically, he decided to play drums we he was 12. Later, a $7 guitar purchase would get him to switch instruments, and by the age of 15 he was taking lessons from Joe Satriani. Yes, that Joe Satriani (the man who also tutored Steve Vai and Kirk Hammett.). "People can't believe that," says Hunter. "But I was just another Berkeley kid and every Berkeley kid took guitar lessons from Joe Satriani. He must have had a hundred students. He's a great teacher."

Hunter sure learned well. He would quickly become the Bay Area's jazz posterboy, one of the premier talents in the so-called nu-jazz renaissance of the early-to-mid 1990s. His first solo CD, Charlie Hunter Trio (on Prawn Song/Mammoth) released in 1993, garnered national attention. Several others would follow on the Blue Note label, along with releases by his other band T.J. Kirk, on Warner Bros. His unique instrument, the 8-string guitar (which allows him to play bass and guitar simultaneously), impressed everyone - critics and fans alike.

But the local celebrityhood bogged him down. "I don’t want to be a fucking star. I hate it. I hate walking down the street and having people go, ‘Oh, you’re him.’ And people who wouldn’t spit on me in high school want to hang out and talk to me. I mean I’m a nice guy, so I hang out and talk to people. But I just don’t like that notoriety, man. I like to be a small fish in a big pond. It makes me real uncomfortable to be a star, especially in the town I grew up in. It’s a little too weird for me. I kinda prefer this anonymity It’s a lot less responsibility this way. For me, getting known is just the means to an end. It means I’m lucky enough to play with someone like [r&b/soul artist] D’Angelo. ... It’s about making more music and being able to try to constantly evolve and do more."

The evolution theme sounds again. Hunter just can’t sit still. He needs change. And it bothers him that jazz remains stagnant. When asked, he can cite a few factors that contribute to the younger generations’ comparative lack of innovation. First, he points to the lack of support from record companies. And second, to the complacency of successful jazz musicians in New York. Both phenomena can, and do, stop artists from evolving. And that hurts jazz, which in turn bums out Mr. Hunter.

A little history lesson illustrates his point: "In the ‘40s you had Charlie Christian and the whole swing thing, Duke Ellington, and all of that going on," says Hunter. "In the ‘50s you had bebop, late-‘40s bebop. Then in the ‘50s you had Miles Davis’ great bands, Coltrane, Cannonball, all that stuff. And Monk. You had all this incredible music. In the ‘60s you had Miles’ group with Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter." Hunter rattles them off like they’re family members.

"You know, all this really groundbreaking stuff that was really new at the time. Totally new and totally vital. You know? And I don’t know if you have that as much in the ‘80s. I don’t think that the point of Wynton Marsalis’ stuff was new music. I think he was kind of being more conservatory, creating the old stuff, and that was what I think was important to him. For better or for worse. But are there really people making a gigantic contribution like John Coltrane made or so on?"

Hunter proceeds to answer his own question: "The music industry is so quarterly-earning oriented that there’s no development of artists anymore, because the big corporations that own the record companies want to see immediate earnings. And that’s for pop music, you can imagine what it’s like for jazz. I saw this guitar player named Kurt Rosenwinkle. You probably never heard of him before. He’s probably the best and most important young guitar player around today. I don’t even rate compared to this guy. He’s the real deal. Yet, nobody knows who Kurt Rosenwinkle is."

With no CDs released, it’s hard to imagine how anyone would know about Rosenwinkle. But that’s just Hunter’s point: Why doesn’t this guy have CDs out? "Because nobody is willing to take a chance on someone doing something new. They’re very frightened that if they do that, they’ll end up fired, without a job because they didn’t show a profit in three months. And what business really does show a profit in three months? I mean, I’ve been doing this for years and last year I lost money. It doesn’t work that way; you have to develop the artist. And I think that maybe record companies will realize that, yeah, there is money in this but we have to stay in it for the long haul. And we have to develop people. And when that happens I think you’ll see people really changing the scope of music, because they’ll have the economic wherewithal to do something like that."

It gets more involved but Hunter has concrete suggestions. You can almost envision him running for mayor of Jazzland. "If you take a jazz act, then you [should] put them on the road and get them in front of people and pay some tour support for them. It’s just getting them in front of the people that does the trick. Cause we’re not gonna be on MTV or anything like that. But the one thing that these people in record companies don’t realize is that when we’re in that club, wherever it is, in Kansas City or St. Louis or Chicago, we’re playing to people who wouldn’t normally be hearing this music. And they’re getting a vibe and they’re a part of the music. And then we’re a part of what they’re getting and it goes back and forth. And we have this huge great time and everyone’s included. You can’t replicate that on MTV or anywhere else. People feel like they were part of something special that happened. And it was real. And they’re gonna support the music and buy the record."

He’s not only right, he says it with flair. Even his speech is punctuated with jazz-like pauses, themes that come around a few times, and nearly poetic rhythms. He’s remarkably easier on his own relationship with Blue Note. Perhaps because he knows that he can’t go on releasing albums or touring without them; after all, this is the most famous jazz label ever (Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane all recorded here), with tons of fresh young musicians on its roster, including US3 and Cassandra Wilson. "For being the landlord, [Blue Note] are great people," Hunter says. "I think to the best of their ability, they’ve done well by me. ... I think they know with me they’ve got a good thing going because I make records that people will buy."

That assertion is partially backed up by the numbers. Hunter’s last CD sold more than 21,000 copies. That’s a respectable amount for any jazz artist today and an especially high number for a young (formerly) Bay Area-based artist. This at a time when all CD sales are down.

Now Hunter has chosen to leave the Bay Area. And the Bay Area should be sad to see him leave. But the media seems to have kept quiet about it. It’s clear that Hunter needs New York (specifically, he lives in Brooklyn), with its diversity, its sheer numbers, its jazz hub. In his opinion, the Bay Area has seen its jazz heyday. "The demographic of the Bay Area changed dramatically in the last 10 years. It’s become a much more affluent place. It used to be a diverse community, especially Berkeley and Oakland where I grew up. And as more and more young professionals move in there - I don’t want to diss them because they’re trying to have a life too - the demographic becomes very small. The others have to move to Hayward or Dublin or wherever else. It’s become very monochromatic in its cultural representation, and I think that hurts the music a lot. Because you’re not gonna have the same amount of diversity affecting your music."

New York may provide plenty of diversity. But as you might expect, even that’s not enough for Hunter. He’s got short-term and long-term goals in mind. "I want to have a career for a long time. And I was talking to [organist] John Medeski [of Medeski, Martin & Wood] the other day and he said, ‘you know, as long as you can get 200 people to come out and see you wherever you go, you can just get in a car and do that for the rest of your life." That’s good advice for the short-term or long-term.

Ultimately, Hunter seeks a cosmic peace that only improved musicianship can bring. "I feel like there are so many speed bumps, stumbling blocks and closed doors in between what I want to play and what I can play. And I think that wherever I get in 10 years depends on how much energy I put into bettering myself as a person. No matter what you do, what you put into it is what you get out of it. It’s the only investment that’s sure to pay off. Spiritually at least." Fly like an eagle, Charlie.