Look Homeward, Hunter
By Judah Gold

Watching Charlie Hunter stroll leisurely into Cafe Strada, a bag full of freshly culled albums tucked under his arm, you might think that the 28-year-old guitar wiz has a day off. Not so. These days, being Charlie Hunter is more than a full time job.

"I've been doing a million interviews," he says. "Every newspaper around the country is calling because we are going on tour."

Indeed, with the release of Bing, Bing, Bing , their first album for Blue Note Records, the Charlie Hunter Trio will soon embark on an extensive U.S. trek. That's not to say they have been slacking in the meantime: just two weeks ago, Hunter and his bandmates (Dave Ellis on tenor sax, Scott Amendola replacing the departed Jay Lane on drums) had the honor of performing at the prestigious Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland.

A Berkeley native, Hunter has had little time to enjoy his return home. "We've been on the road for two months and will be on the road for three more months," he says.

Local clubgoers remember when you could catch Charlie Hunter in The City every Tuesday night at the Elbo Room and every Friday night at the Up and Down club. He held those gigs for two years.

"It was great to just have a place to play for that long a time," he says. "That certainly saved our asses for quite some time." In other words, it paid the rent.

Hunter is no ordinary axeman. "I'm an 8-string guitarist," he explains. He handles the duties of both the bassist and the guitarist by playing both parts simultaneously, on an instrument that is a unique fusion of a bass and guitar. No, it's not a double necked gargoyle of the 1970s that you might see Jimmy Page playing in old Led Zeppelin concert footage, but rather an 8-string guitar of Hunter's own design, whose lowest three strings are routed separately to a bass amp. Routing the higher strings through a specialized speaker emulator, Hunter can convincingly replicate the sound of an organ. Hunter is the only recording artist in history that has dared to tackle such an instrument. He handles the task with aplomb, mixing technical virtuosity with infectious, biting grooves, alive with Jazz's spirit of improvisation. Such skills have brought Hunter his current international recognition -- and a rather busy schedule.