 By
now it should be apparent that Charlie
Hunter's career has long legs. The 32-year-old
eight-string guitarist has not only been
churning out an album per year since
signing with Blue Note Records in 1995,
but he has also consistently thrown change
ups into the mix of each outing-thereby
insuring that each recording has a freshness
and vitality of approach that is the
hallmark of a successful artist. Based
on past offerings, you can't accuse Hunter
of drifting into a zone of jazz stasis.
With
his latest Blue Note release, self-titled,
Hunter continues to explore a breadth of
expression-from funky dance floor grooves
teeming with percussion to stop-you-in-your-tracks
balladry in a solo setting. He's invited
some old friends as well as new partners.
It's his sixth recording for the label
and seventh overall as a leader. So what's
new with Charlie this time out? "This is
the first record I've made without a steady
band and the first where I didn't adhere
to the same concept all the way through," he
says, while noting that this is also the
first time he's been stumped by a title. "I've
been keeping self-titled as a backup all
these years just in case I couldn't come
up with something good for my other albums."
As
in previous recordings, Hunter tweaks the
personnel list on this self-titled release.
Returning in fine form is the brilliant
drummer Leon
Parker who collaborated with the
guitarist on his Duo
album (1999). The leader also enlisted
two percussionists, Robert Perkins and Stephen
Chopek, and for several songs calls
on the services of trombonist Josh
Roseman and tenor saxophonist Peter
Apfelbaum (the latter, like Hunter,
an ex-San Francisco Bay Area noteworthy
who now lives in Brooklyn). This is first
appearance of horns on a Hunter album since
1997's Natty Dread,
the re-envisioning of Bob Marley's classic
recording in the Blue Note Covers Series.
While
in the planning stages of the new disc,
Hunter listened to his old albums. "What
I liked about them was that they all adhered
to a strict concept," he says. "That was
good because the listener wasn't subjected
to a mishmash effect. But this time out
I decided to try a bunch of different looks." The
quick-witted Hunter, always ready to launch
into an impromptu metaphor to explain himself,
talks hoop: "It's like a basketball team
coming down the court and running the same
play everytime. It gets pretty predictable.
But if you structure your offense around
your different players-running a play for
the center, then the next time focusing
on your shooting guard-then you've got
a game."
Translated
into jazz lingo: Hunter played to the strength
of his studio-forged band. What's the difference
between that and a mishmash? "You know,
when you're younger and you make your first
record, you think it will be the only album
you'll ever make," Hunter says. "So, the
temptation is to try to fit everything
you love into that one record. Even though
I made Untitled without a band per
se, I still approached each song with a
band concept in mind."
Hunter
has been one of Blue Note's most popular
artists since breaking in with 1995's Bing
Bing Bing!, a tenor saxophone-drum
trio. He added an alto saxophone to the
mix for his next two recordings, Ready...Set...Shango! and
the Bob Marley cover project Natty
Dread. He then threw a curve ball
with The Return of
the Candyman (1998) when he retired
the horn section and enlisted vibes player Stefon
Harris and percussionist John
Santos to join him and longtime
drummer Scott
Amendola in a new quartet called Pound
For Pound. Last year's Duo found Hunter
scaling back to the rhythm basics with
Parker. (In addition to his own projects,
Hunter found the time to contribute to
other albums, most notably pop star D'Angelo
whose recently-released Voodoo CD
features Hunter on three tracks, two of
which he shares co-writing credit.)
Parker
appears on nearly every tune of self-titled which
makes for a ready-made rhythm section thanks
to Hunter's eight-string ax, which allows
him to play bass and lead simultaneously. "Leon
and I have played for a long time together,
so we have a continuity," says Hunter. "So
the two of us provide the pencil sketchings
of the pieces so that the other players
can come in and apply shading and color."
Hunter
opted for a double barrage of percussion
to give him a little distance from the
drum kit.
"After playing with Leon and then Adam
Cruz on tour, I didn't know where
to turn to find a drummer who was as special
as both those guys. So I decided to explore
the wall-of-percussion possibilities to get
that big, wide-open sound with a lot of groove." As
for the horn players, Hunter says, "They
played their asses off. All I had to do was
write out melody charts and they hit the
tunes hard."
The
album opens with the catchy and very percussive
number "Rendezvous Avec La Verité," a
Hunter original that speaks of the truth. "This
is something Adam and I worked on while
on the road. It's got a strong 6/8 groove." As
for its title, Hunter first chose "A Little
6/8," then went with "One Outside the Deal" before
finally settling on the French title. "I
was watching cable TV one night late," he
explains, "and I saw this show on Haitian
Pentecostalism called 'Rendezvous Avec
La Verité.' I loved the name so
I gave it to this number."
The
horns get introduced on the jaunty, upbeat
"Two
for Bleu," a tune Hunter wrote for
a friend who died last year of an aneurysm.
That's followed by "Al Green," a soulful
muse on the soul man. "This tune reminds
me of Al Green. It has a slow groove that
he could sing over. This is Leon and me just
playing in the studio and coming up with
a tune from nowhere."
The
tenor sax and trombone take center stage
again on the cooker "Nothin'
But Trouble," that Hunter calls
a "power tune for dancing and listening...that's
a straight up, stinky, gutbucket Texas
shuffle." After the dance groove ends,
the intriguing number "Cloud Splitter" tip-toes
in. With its muted guitar notes and muted
trombone lines, the tune comes off as a
hip, cool pop number. Apfelbaum, Hunter
notes, likened the piece to a giant green
caterpillar.
Thelonious
Monk's classic tune "Epistrophy"
is spiced with a percolating Latin beat (it's
another tune Hunter and Cruz arranged while
on tour), a Hunter original "Flau Flau" catches
a blues groove and sails (the guitarist says
it reminds him of a "straight-up New Orleans
funeral with a little Albert King and a little
funky gravestone tremolo") and "Dersu" (first
recorded as a ballad in 5/4 time on Hunter's
1996 Ready...Set...Shango CD) is rendered
in a funky vein by Hunter and Parker with
the former soloing over the latter's rhythms.
The
album closes with a striking solo guitar
take on the Donny Hathaway pop classic "Someday
We'll All Be Free." It's a transcendent
moment on the disc. Hunter, best known
for his groove jazz, proves again that
his ballad playing is one of jazz's best
kept secrets (check out his stunning take
on "You Don't Know What Love Is" on Duo).
"Lately
I've been playing around with more solo
guitar stuff," says Hunter. Does this presage
a future project? He's mum on the subject
for now, but don't count that out. There
are many more surprising new turns ahead
for Hunter, who once again shows on self-titled
that being plugged in creatively makes
for some mighty fine music. |
