Charlie Hunter Quintet

Charlie Hunter Quintet ‎- Right Now Move - 2003 - Ropeadope Records

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. While playing both guitar and bass in various Bay Area bands, Charlie developed a seven-string hybrid instrument on which he could play sophisticated lead guitar while playing bass lines simultaneously. Later, in 1992, he designed a prototype of his current 8-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. Although Charlie easily plays complex and progressive jazz music mixing many music genres, his roots are in jazz music, drawing from modern jazz harmony and influenced by great organ players like Big John Patton, Larry Young, and Jimmy Smith. Importantly, Charlie also avidly listens to, studies and is inspired by all genres of music from around the world, including Latin, rock, funk, soul, and numerous other genres. Charlie says, "I'm really into coming up with and playing different kinds of grooves ... I try to distill all the music I love into something that sounds organic and natural." Don’t let the terms “complex” or “progressive” deter you from listening to any kind of music, especially jazz. Progressive, jazz, and fusion music may be extremely difficult music to play but can also be very easy and enjoyable to listen to. The fact that Charlie plays an instrument which he designed himself says a lot about his love of music. His aspirations in developing his own original musical concepts is truly commendable in today’s dire music scene. Farrell Lowe in AllAboutJazz wrote that “Hunter appears to approach his unique eight-string guitar from a Hammond B-3 perspective. His bass lines often sound like they could more likely have been generated on the pedals under an organist's feet than from the fatter strings of his instrument. To his credit, Hunter has, by incorporating organ tonal qualities and the swirling impression of a Leslie speaker, come a long way towards creating his own sound on the guitar. As a guitarist, Hunter's technique on the instrument is nothing short of awe-inspiring. He is adding his voice to the rich heritage of the extended-range guitar work of players like George Van Eps, Howard Alden, Bucy Pizzarelli, and Egberto Gismonti. His phrasing and articulation is fluid and confident—he is a major player”. Farrell also said that, “Right Now Move should be a no-brainer for folks who like the music of Medeski, Martin and Wood, due to their similarities in style and background; it should also be of particular interest to fans of Blue Note-era organ combos. Charlie Hunter could be the 21st century's equivalent to Grant Green—in a good way!” Although Charlie Hunter is a hugely talented guitarist, he proves on this album that long histrionic shredding guitar solos do not make either a great album or a great guitarist. All the tracks on “Right Now Move” are first takes. Charlie wrote twelve of the album’s thirteen tracks, and the musicianship is spontaneous and superb. The album is HR by A.O.O.F.C. Speaking about music, Charlie Hunter said this, and it is very relevant in the dire music scene today, "Part of my theory about music is that too much of today's popular music has become two-dimensional. The corporate middleman forces artists into making music that's 2D - it's flat. It used to be that A and R people would find pop artists like Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, who might be attractive or beautiful, but they were also extremely talented and musical. Now, the corporate structure forces artists into an artificial mould design for mass consumption. And the product doesn't end up communicating very deeply to people. I want my music to be 3D, reflective of the reality we live in, something for real people to relate to who live in a real community. Real people have to get up and go to work in the morning. I want my music to speak to them and make their lives better as a result." Check out Charlie’s “Copperopolis” album on this blog, and listen to Charlie Hunter Trio’s outstanding “Friends Seen and Unseen” album [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 148 Mb]

TRACKS

1 Mestre Data 4:36
2 Oakland 6:09
3 Changui 3:45
4 Try 7:12
5 Whoop-Ass 4:23
6 Interlude 10:54
7 Wade In The Water 5:02
8 20th Congress 5:45
9 Interlude 5 0:52
10 Winky 6:01
11 Freak Fest 4:39
12 Mali 6:57
13 Le Bateau Live 5:51

All tracks composed by Charlie Hunter except Track 7 (Trad.)

MUSICIANS

Charlie Hunter - 8 String Guitar, Pandeiro
Derrek Phillips - Drums, Percussion
John Ellis - Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet
Curtis Fowlkes - Trombone
Gregoire Maret - Chromatic Harmonica

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 separatesignals 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