Converging Grooves
Conversing Guitars
An Excerpt
By Bill Milkowski
Photography by Gene Martin

They're a generation apart but have much in common. Both are extraordinary gifted guitar players and improvisers who combine elements of jazz, rock and blues into their wholly unique vocabularies. They also possess an uncommonly strong affinity for groove music, as evidenced by their respective new releases - Scofield's A Go Go (Verve), his funky collaboration with groovemeisters Medeski, Martin and Wood, and Hunter's The Return of the Candyman (Blue Note) with his new band Pound for Pound, which features vibraphonist Stefon Harris, longtime drummer Scott Amendola and Bay Area percussionist John Santos. And while Scofield is quite comfortable with his six strings, Hunter is doing something of a juggling act with an eight-string guitar, a hybrid instrument that allows him to simultaneously cover deep, rich basslines with chordal accompaniment and single note melody lines … sort of like a groove-happy Joe Pass with a Johnny Guitar Watson heart.

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."Scofield, the most celebrated guitarist in jazz today, has certainly carved out a niche for himself after more than two decades of consistently strong albums. In retrospect, his career can be divided up into distinct phases: '70s apprenticeship (with the Gerry Mullin/Chet Baker band in '74, followed by two years with Billy Cobham's group and a stint with Gary Burton); late '70s - early '80s trio phase with drummer Adam Nussbaum and bassist Steve Swallow (Bar Talk, Shinola, Out Like A Light); '80s electric phase with Miles Davis (Star People, Decoy and

Scofield's Debut with Verve, the Gil Evans- inspired Quiet, was an incremental leap to another plateau as a writer and arranger of gorgeous material for nylon-string acoustic and ten-piece ensemble. On A Go Go, he returns to his funky roots with some of his nastiest bent-string abandon on record.

Hunter made some initial noise in the early '90s with the alternative band, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. His Charlie Hunter Trio, released in 1993 on the independent Mammoth Records, grabbed the attention of guitar aficionados who immediately set out trying to figure out what the hell this guy was doing. Using a custom-made guitar that has 3 bass strings and five treble strings, Hunter was covering the low range as well as the conventional guitar duties. His three albums on Blue Note - 1995's Bing, Bing, Bing!, followed by Ready…. Set…Shango!, last year's Bob Marley tribute, Natty Dread and his current The Return Of The Candyman -- along with a steady diet of touring have helped establish Hunter as a popular attraction on the same neo-groove network that Medeski, Martin & Wood frequents. In addition to his Blue Note works, Charlie also plays in TJ Kirk, a three-guitar band that performs slightly twisted versions of tunes by Thelonious Monk, James Brown, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. They have two albums out n Warner Bros.

We met at Gene Martin's photo studio in Chelsea and cabbed over to a Cuban-Chinese diner on 8th Avenue. Fried plantains, rice and beans and lots of free flowing chatter ensued between these two kindred spirits. Hunter, who seemed awestruck at certain points in the conversation, had recently moved to New York after spending most of his life in the Bay Area. Scofield, the ol' New York verteran, had left Manhattan a few years ago for the quietude of Katonah, and hour and a half upstate.

JazzTimes: Charlie, was part of the reason why you moved to New York to soak up the scene here and let it influence you?

Hunter: Definitely. As I told John, I'm not so much of a go-out guy but I pick my time. Also, for me, the Bay Area was drying up. I lived in the same neighborhood I grew up in, so it was time to move on.
Scofield: I remember when I moved to New York in 1974, I really think in the first three months I was here my playing improved faster than it had in years. Because, you know, Sonny Rollins is living a few blocks from you and McCoy Tyner is over here and there's just a vibe in the air about living here. Even if you don't go out to check out groups every night, it's in the streets, it's in the neighborhoods. I mean, I saw Wayne Shorter getting a coffee on day on the Upper West Side and just that affected me.
Hunter: Wow! Damn! For my generation see, I feel like it was more happening then. People were doing music that was new then, they weren't so concerned with rehashing older stuff. You guys were the generation that actually got to see Miles play at his peak and saw all of those people doing their thing when it was s real thing as opposed to now; where it's kind of once or twice removed. People my age take from so many sources because there's so much out there now. It's so scattered. But I think you guys were more connected to what was actually, to me, real. Maybe I'm just tripping and doing this in hindsight or something. I'm just curious what your take on that is.
Scofield: Well, I was 25 when I came to town and I just remember thinking, "God, it must've been great when Charlie Parker was around."

JazzTimes:So everybody romanticizes about the previous generation.

Scofield: When I look back on when I first went to Berklee in 1970…getting to hear Miles and fantastic bands nightly in this jazz club in Boston, which must not have been that expensive because I was there pretty often and I didn't have any money. Compare that to trying to go to the Blue Note now, which is absolutely impossible for a young jazz musician to afford.
Hunter: Forget about it.
Scofield: Also, when I came up was the beginning of fusion, right when it first started with Bitches Brew and everything. And that was actually a really dead period. Coltrane had died, the free jazz thing had slowed down, people were saying there was no jazz. The Jefferson Airplane ruled. It was certainly no thriving economic scene for jazz music. Jazz musicians were out of work and giving up playing straight ahead. But it was also that great rock era that influenced jazz, so from my perspective it was a good time

JazzTimes:There is a network of young players now who have created an alternative jazz scene - Ben Allison, Ben Perowsky, Matt Wilson, Seamus Blake, Adam Rogers, Steve Bernstein, Dave Binney, all of whom are playing adventurous original music.

Hunter: Yes, there's definitely a lot of creativity happening in that scene.
Scofield: It's kind of an alternate form of jazz. It's different from the curriculum. And it's very interesting to me that there is an audience for this stuff…Charlie and some of the other people right now. That wasn't happening a couple of years ago.

JazzTimes:You're the post-Wyton generation, man.