Charlie Hunter Trio

Charlie Hunter Trio ‎- Copperopolis - 2006 - Ropeadope Records

LIFE IS WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHILE YOU’RE BUSY MAKING OTHER PLANS.... and while CHARLIE HUNTER’S other plans have included other bands (most recently including GARAGE-A-TROIS & GROUNDRUTHER) other gigs (endless dates as a side-man, studio musician and colloborator) and other formations of his own band (from duo, to quartet to quintet) Charlie always fond himself going back to where it all began - the trio, which, after 15 years as a leader, has finally become his band, the one that’s gonna stick together, grow old together. Now together for over 5 years, having toured the world (and beyond) the CHARLIE HUNTER TRIO follows up 2003’s “FRIENDS SEEN and UNSEEN” with COPPEROPOLIS, same 3 guys, but different in one big way - IT ROCKS. Literally - “I was just feeling rocky I guess” says the band leader. And the addition of John Ellis’ playing both the wurlizer and melodica opened up a lot of space for Charlie to simply shred. This is the album fans (and Ropeadope) has been calling on for years. Pop it in, turn it up and rock it out. and you shall see. © http://www.charliehunter.com/discs/copperopolis.htm

Longtime Charlie Hunter associates John Ellis (reeds and keys) and drummer Derrek Phillips were soon to leave the fold after the recording of this session, but there is no sign of undue tension in this typically impressive set. The proceedings kick off with the hard rocking "Cueball Bobbin'...," where Ellis switches from keys to sax and back as Hunter rips into some of his hardest rocking riffs, weaving around the other instruments like a prizefighter taunting his opponent. If nothing else quite matches the driving intensity of that track, the rest is immensely enjoyable jazz-rock fusion that plays far more to the jazz side of that equation. The disc was recorded in New Orleans, which might account for the spooky second-line rhythm of "Swamba Redux," a taut concoction that features Ellis' melodica on the opening lines, followed by his impassioned tenor blowing. These three play together with a loose precision that's both slippery and rugged, finding a groove and riding it on material that slides through surprises and changes but never seems showy for the sake of it. The trio pushes into minor-key avant-garde territory on the opening of the title track, before settling into a dark bluesy shuffle somewhat like Miles Davis' work with John McLaughlin. When Ellis blows dirty sax against Hunter's growling tremolo guitar lines, the tune takes off to the stratosphere. It's one of the moments that, even at close to six minutes, fades out too soon. Co-producers Hunter and Chris Finney often isolate the guitar in one speaker and the sax in the other, which provides a live feel and a vivid tension between the two instruments. The portentously titled "A Street Fight Could Break Out" is a surprisingly jaunty side trip; its walking, finger-popping bassline provides some of the album's lighter moments. The closing take on Thelonious Monk's "Think of One," the album's sole cover, is transformed by more second-line drumming and an Ellis tenor solo that sizzles. Most impressive, though, is how the three members play off and respond to each other, with nobody, even Hunter, stealing the spotlight on a disc that keeps revealing new twists. If this is to be the final bow of this configuration, at least the bandmembers leave on top. © Hal Horowitz © 2013 AllMusic, a division of All Media Network, LLC. | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/album/copperopolis-mw0000345494

Charlie Hunter opens "Copperopolis" with 30 seconds of shapeless noise as a warm-up, a little pause for anticipation -- and then he gets rock'n'roll. Back in the trio setting after detours with his Garage A Trois and Groundtruther projects and numerous other band configurations, Hunter takes the sort of homecoming to lead John Ellis (keyboards, horns) and Derrek Phillips (drums) through nine tracks of head-nodding fun. Purists may have a hard time filing this under jazz, but it will be spectacularly accessible to the genre's casual visitors. "Cueball Bobbin'" gives up a nasty groove, "The Pursuit Package" efficiently showcases a swamp-rock riff and Ellis' melodica dances on "A Street Fight Could Break Out." Like his contemporaries in Soulive, Hunter's one of the best hopes for bringing this funk-spiced brand of expanded jazz to more ears. © Jeff Vrabel © 2013 Billboard. All Rights Reserved http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/59528/charlie-hunter-trio-copperopolis

A word of caution for those considering the latest offering by The Charlie Hunter Trio - if you prefer tidy three-minute, three-chord pop music, this isn't the album for you. Copperopolis is a nine-track, fifty-four-minute odyssey into jazz fusion, incorporating rock, funk, blues, and jazz elements in unique instrumentals. Copperopolis finds Hunter and cohorts Derrek Phillips and John Ellis focusing on the interaction between instruments and sounds - at times, using euphonious call and response; at others, intertwining melodic instruments (usually Hunter's electric 8-string and Ellis's saxophone) so that they become indistinguishable from one another. Copperopolis is a study in musical moods both rollicking and haunting, joyous and ominous. Copperopolis begins with the rousing jazz-funk boogie, "Cueball Bobbin" - a seven-minute instrumental with blues-inspired distorted guitar riffs, swinging keyboards, and tenor sax over an intricate rock rhythm. "Frontman," by contrast, is a mellow jazz ballad replete with tender, wailing guitar, moody keyboards, and echoing jazz drums - each instrument going on a seemingly separate, yet unified musical journey. "Swamba Redux" has a moseying funk rhythm that is at odds with Hunter's ominous reverberating guitar (which at times sounds like an electric organ, rather than an 8-string guitar) and Ellis's wailing, rather sinister, blues-inspired horn solos. Halfway through, drummer Phillips picks up the rhythm to add even greater contrast. The title track is a six-minute jazzy drum, saxophone and electric guitar ballad with a haunting intro and a menacing tone. Here, Hunter and Ellis engage in musical mimicry with guitar and saxophone, respectively - musically synchronized, at first; then, dueling for a while before allowing the structure to unravel and make way for two separate melodies. "Copperopolis" is easily the album's centerpiece, as well as its musical highlight. "Blue Sock" is a mellow jazz-blues song where once again Hunter and Ellis intertwine guitar and sax before offering complimentary musical adventures, while "The Pursuit Package" is a funky two-minute blues song with wailing guitar and a bass-heavy drum groove that changes pace continually, flourishes and fades out, before disintegrating into only Phillips's rock rhythm. Suddenly, "The Pursuit Package" gives way to "A Street Fight Could Break Out" - a mellow '70s-inspired blues-rock ballad that grooves along like a summer day. Copperopolis closes with two quite sonically disparate songs - the slow-moving, portentous odyssey "Drop The Rock" and the old school funk- and blues-infused "Think Of One." The latter features a jazzy dance rhythm and finds Hunter and company breaking for drum and sax solos as well as melding all instruments into a mellifluous whole as in other songs. Copperopolis is a hip musical journey - at times, baleful; at times, playful; always musically irresistible - that offers the best of jazz, funk, rock, and blues. © Tracy M. Rogers © http://www.hybridmagazine.com/reviews/0206/charliehunter.shtml

The great Rhode Island born guitarist grew up in the San Francisco Bay area playing orthodox six-string guitar. He took lessons from guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani when he was just fourteen. However Charlie had a keen interest in the complex playing of great guitarists like Joe Pass and Tuck Andress and decided he needed more than six strings on a guitar to bring his own jazz ideas to life. Charlie began playing a seven string guitar on which he could play unique and sophisticated lead guitar while playing bass lines simultaneously. Amazingly, in the mid-nineties, Charlie began using a custom built Novax eight-string guitar, creating and developing even more original music which few guitarists have been able to emulate. His playing is ingenious. You have to hear this guy playing to realise just how great a guitarist he is, and the futuristic innovation he has employed in his music. “Copperopolis” is highly complex and progressive jazz music mixing many music genres including rock, funk, folk, country and others. Don’t let the terms “complex” or “progressive” deter you from listening to this album, and jazz in general. This is extremely difficult music to play but very easy and enjoyable to listen to. Charlie wrote or co-wrote eight of the album’s nine tracks. He is backed by John Ellis on keys, sax, and clarinet and Derrek Phillips on drums. The album is HR by A.O.O.F.C. Listen to Charlie Hunter Trio’s outstanding “Friends Seen and Unseen” album [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 127 Mb]

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1 Cueball Bobbin'... - Charlie Hunter 7:06
2 Frontman - Charlie Hunter 5:38
3 Swamba Redux - Charlie Hunter, John Ellis 6:21
4 Copperopolis - Charlie Hunter 5:51
5 Blue Sock - Charlie Hunter 8:07
6 The Pursuit Package - Charlie Hunter, Derrek Phillips 2:14
7 A Street Fight Could Break Out - Charlie Hunter 6:46
8 Drop The Rock - Charlie Hunter 6:24
9 Think Of One - Thelonious Monk 5:18

TRIO

Charlie Hunter - 8-string Guitar
John Ellis - Wurlitzer Organ, Melodica, Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet
Derrek Phillips - Drums

BIO

As a young guitarist growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Charlie Hunter was looking for a way to stand out in the '80s. His primary influences were jazz great Joe Pass and the fluid Tuck Andress (of the guitar/vocal duo Tuck & Patti), both six-string guitarists who were adept at blending bass notes into their standard guitar melodies to make themselves sound like two musicians at once. But Hunter wanted to take it one step further, and set out to find an instrument on which he could simultaneously function as both a guitarist and a bassist. For his self-titled 1993 debut CD, Hunter played a seven-string guitar for the duality effect, locking down the bottom with drummer Jay Lane and mixing melodically with saxophonist David Ellis. But on his trio's 1995 sophomore release, Bing, Bing, Bing!, Hunter unveiled his custom-made Novax eight-string, the guitar that finally allowed him to realize his capacity. Designed by Ralph Novak, the instrument featured special frets and separate
signals for its guitar and bass portions. Picking bass notes with his right thumb while fretting them with his left index finger (while at the same time fingerpicking guitar chords and single notes with his right hand's remaining four digits as he frets with his left hand's other three fingers), Hunter achieves the real sound of two-for-one. Hunter played with the side group T.J. Kirk in the mid-'90s, a band that derived their name from the cover material they exclusively played: Thelonious Monk, James Brown, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Initially wanting to call themselves James T. Kirk before being threatened by the Star Trek TV and film series, T.J. Kirk released a self-titled 1995 debut and the 1996 follow-up, If Four Was One, before disbanding. Hunter took drummer Scott Amendola with him for his next project, an ambitious instrumental remake of Bob Marley's Natty Dread album in its entirety. Also featuring saxophonists Kenny Brooks and Calder Spanier, the 1997 release beat the odds by becoming arguably Hunter's best album. After Spanier died from injuries sustained from being hit by a car, Hunter moved east to New York, taking Amendola with him. Teaming with vibraphonist Stefon Harris and percussionist John Santos, Charlie Hunter & Pound for Pound's 1998 CD Return of the Candyman is dedicated to Spanier. A departure from Natty Dread, mainly due to the work of Harris, the disc featured a vibes-heavy cover of Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle." Hunter's modus operandi had now become shifting personnel changes, and in between tours he recorded a 1999 duo CD with drummer/percussionist Leon Parker and a self-titled 2000 CD that featured Parker and an otherwise ensemble cast. Hunter also contributed greatly to the 2000comeback CD by drummer Mike Clark, Actual Proof. Hunter concluded his run at Blue Note with 2001's Songs from the Analog Playground, which saw him collaborating with vocalists for the first time, ranging from labelmates Norah Jones and Kurt Elling to Mos Def. 2003 found Hunter with a new label (Ropeadope) and two new bands (the Charlie Hunter Quintet) on Right Now Move, and the beginning of Groundtruther, a partnership with percussionist/composer Bobby Previte. They released Come in Red Dog, This Is Tango Leader before adopting the Groundtruther moniker. For 2003's Friends Seen and Unseen, it was back to the Charlie Hunter Trio, with drummer Derrek Phillips and saxman John Ellis, both members of the Quintet. By now, Groundtruther had taken on a life of its own, with Hunter and Previte joined by a rotating third member. Latitude was first, in 2004 with saxophonist Greg Osby, followed by Longitude with DJ Logic in 2005. In 2006, the Charlie Hunter Trio resurfaced with Copperopolis and almost immediately announced that it was disbanding as Ellis wanted to further pursue a solo career. What to do? Form another trio! After recruiting Erik Deutsch on keys and Simon Lott on drums, they released Mistico in the summer of 2007, Hunter's first album for Fantasy. © Bill Meredith © 2013 AllMusic, a division of All Media Network, LLC. | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/artist/charlie-hunter-mn0000806601/biography