Charlie Hunter

"I knew that I wanted to do this with my life from when I was 16", says Hunter about his musical career. His early recognition of this may have been influenced by the fact that he grew up in homes where his mother repaired guitars for a living in Berkeley, California where he has lived since he was eight years old. Charlie picked up his first guitar when he was twelve years old for $7, and a few years later was taking lessons from Joe Satriani, who at that time was just another guitar teacher. "People can't believe that but I was just another Berkeley kid and every Berkeley kid took lessons from Joe Satriani. He must have had a hundred students. He's a great teacher."

Charlie graduated from the same Berkeley high school whose music program produced saxophonist Joshua Redman and pianist Benny Green, but Hunter did not participate in the school's prestigious music program. "I really wasn't an institutional-type person. I had to go out and do my own thing. I was a naughty kid who went through the crazy angst-driven hysteria many teenagers experience," says Hunter, who doesn't deny not making it to class much. "Because I was from a low-income family, I was tracked into the lowest level of academic courses. You didn't get a chance to develop much self-esteem there, so I decided to focus on something that made me feel good. I graduated by the skin of my teeth."

"I was into everything at that point - blues, rockabilly, funk and soul...", but it wasn't until Hunter turned 18 that he discovered jazz. "My friends said, 'You got to get into jazz, you've got to listen to Weather Report.' And I thought, 'This is fusion. I'm not really into that.' So then somebody told me I should listen to Wes Montgomery, but the album I got was one of those with strings, and I was totally turned off. Finally, somebody said, 'You need to check out Charlie Parker and Charlie Christian and John Coltrane,' and it was like boom! I was instantly turned on. Their total sound and the reality of their playing just cut through everything. I suddenly wanted to play like that."

Hunter soon discovered and became heavily influenced by such organ legends as Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, and Big John Patton. Mix this with some of his favorite artists from other genres such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and Little Walter, and you can see where Hunter's sound came from. But it was the exposure to so many various genres of music that Charlie is thankful for. "Growing up in the Bay Area had a profound effect on my music. I was exposed to everything from the Dead Kennedy's to P-Funk to Art Blakey. In the Bay Area, you have all of these different musical cultures living together and all of these different musical cultures and their music gets semi-assimilated into this non-polarized state of being where hybrids are free to grow, and there are all of these genres and cross genres to play in and around."

Michael Franti Charlie had his first 7-string guitar (2 bass strings, 5 guitar strings, 2 pickups) made for him in the late eighties, and, after figuring out how to play his custom-made toy, left for Europe to perform on the streets of Paris and Zurich. Upon returning to the states and gigging around South of Market clubs in San Francisco and in Berkeley playing by himself (covering both bass and guitar parts) he hooked up with poet/rapper Michael Franti. They performed together as a duo from time to time until Franti formed the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and brought Charlie with him. In 1993, Charlie joined them on their tour which included a year's worth of huge stadium gigs opening for U2 along with Primus.

Dave Ellis Charlie left Disposable Heroes in 1993 in search of more jazz-oriented music. "It was interesting, but that whole pop art scene was an overall drag. I love pop music, but it's a lot different when you get to sit back and be on the receiving end. It was difficult for me as an artist who's dedicated to searching for the spiritual core of music to have to deal with being in a situation where the quest is in the most superficial, consumer-driven aspects of the recording industry. It's hard enough driving for hours to get to the next city. When you get there, you at least want to play music that excites you." He recruited his old elementary school friend Dave Ellis who was first chair tenor in the Berkeley High jazz orchestra. Although they traveled in different social circles, they remained friends throughout the years. "We did play together occasionally. As a matter of fact, I think Dave still has blackmail tapes." It wasn't until now though that he and Ellis hooked up for serious jazz sessions. With the addition of Jay Lane, who played drums in the original lineup of Primus, the Charlie Hunter Trio was formed.

Jay Lane After a few months of gigging around the Bay Area, the Trio landed a weekly gig every Tuesday night at the Elbo Room in San Francisco. This is where Hunter says they began to jell as a group playing a distinctive Bay Area style of jazz. "That's where we learned to study the past and practice the present." Primus leader, Les Claypool, soon talked the band into recording an album for him on his own label, Prawn Song Records (the logo spoofs Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label portraying a shrimp with wings) a subsidiary of Mammoth Records. The self-titled Charlie Hunter Trio album was released at the beginning of 1994.

It wasn't long before Trio gigs were packed with curious listeners at such clubs as the Elbo Room and the Up and Down Club in San Francisco. Around this time, Charlie had another guitar made for him adding a bass-string to make it an eight-string guitar. It didn't take long for Blue Note Records to come along and snatch Hunter up for a recording contract. In 1995, Charlie Hunter Trio released their first major label record, Bing, Bing, Bing.

Attracting a younger, more rock-oriented audience to his gigs amuses Charlie. "I think that because we covered a Kurt Cobain song on the first Blue Note Record, people have decided we are really into alternative rock. Actually, Nirvana is probably the only alternative rock band that I know," Charlie adds with a laugh, "but Cobain was a really good songwriter."

"I think our music is an alternative to the suit-and-tie club that says you have to be well-to-do and super-intellectual to understand jazz music", Charlie continues. "We don't have that attitude. We play at places where people aren't interested in pigeonholing instrumental music." As a result, most Bay Area gigs were priced at no more than $5 and Charlie began exposing jazz to an audience that may otherwise have stayed away from it. "We're jazz musicians, but we're jazz musicians from their generation. That's who we share aspects of a common life with and that's who we are trying to reach."

"We know the lineage of jazz and we're completely in debt to it. We've built the foundation of our music on John Coltrane, on Charlie Parker, on Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk, all the way back through Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton to the turn of the century. We want people to know that this is the music that means the most to us. But we also want our audience to know that we are from the twenty something generation, that we share the same experiences as a lot of people our age. That's what we want to communicate; that's what inspires us. I am very proud of the fact that our audience is very diverse. There are a lot of women who come to our shows. There are a lot of kids-I mean teens and young adults-who bring their parents. And there are a lot of moms and dads who bring their kids, and that makes me feel like we're doing something right."

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A Conversation with Charlie Hunter

by Jason West
September 15, 2024

This article was first published at All About Jazz in May 1999. One tends to get the impression that Charlie Hunter truly doesn't care about the big money, the acres of critics, or the international hype he receives. Perhaps this is because the 31 year-old Bay Area native is too concerned about growing as a musician. Hunter's world is all about making good music, and this he and his custom 8-string guitar--no bassist necessary--continues to do by investigating ...

Album Review

Candice Ivory: When The Levee Breaks: The Music Of Memphis Minnie

Read "When The Levee Breaks: The Music Of Memphis Minnie" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
December 9, 2023

Candice Ivory is more than a little ambitious to conceive and execute an album comprised wholly of material by blues icon Memphis Minnie. But to her credit, she has been quite resourceful in enlisting some formidable resources in the effort: guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter serves as a player and the album producer, the latter role he also filled on the album of the steel guitarist here DaShawn Hickman. Needless to say, camaraderie abounds throughout the dozen cuts, beginning with ...

Album Review

Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter: SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree

Read "SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 14, 2023

As Shakespeare said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter follow up their Grammy-nominated 2021 album, SuperBlue (Edition), with another sublime blend of jazz and groove. As on the first disc, jazz is represented by Elling, groove by Butcher Brown keyboardist DJ Harrison and drummer Corey Fonville. Hunter, who has had a foot in both camps for over two decades, acts as marriage broker. Some jazz fans have an aversion to singers, ...

Album Review

Kurt Elling: SuperBlue

Read "SuperBlue" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
December 6, 2021

Nel pieno delle restrizioni Covid, la condizione artisticamente più difficile dopo la seconda guerra mondiale, Kurt Elling ha realizzato uno dei suoi album migliori, quello dal groove più intenso e coinvolgente.Il merito va condiviso col chitarrista Charlie Hunter e con gli altri due partner, il tastierista DJ Harrison e il batterista Corey Fonville. Chi segue la scena della black popular music attuale sa che i due sono membri del collettivo Butcher Brown, la band jazz/funk/hip-hop di Richmond che ...

Radio & Podcasts

Costanza Alegiani, Charlie Hunter, Christian McBride, Nicole Johänntgen & Other New Releases

by Ludovico Granvassu
July 3, 2021

In the two weeks since our last new releases special, so much great music came to our attention that today we have one of those shows that some define as “all killer, no filler..." except that I don't like to think of music as “killing," but you catch my drift. A special focus on Charlie Hunter's numerous recent projects as leader or sideman, and on great bass players like Petter Eldh, Christian McBride, Michael Formanek and Clovis Nicolas. ...

Album Review

Garage A Trois: Calm Down Cologne

Read "Calm Down Cologne" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 2, 2021

Formed by guitarist Charlie Hunter, saxophonist Skerik and drummer Stanton Moore in 1999, Garage A Trois has sparked a slew of “But is it jazz?" debates with every new release. Calm Down Cologne will do it again. GAT has been through various incarnations since its debut EP, The Mysteryfunk (Fog City Records, 1999), necessitated by the departure of Hunter. The group's last album, 2011's Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil (Royal Potato Family), was actually made by a ...

Live Review

Charlie Hunter and Lucy Woodward at Dazzle

by Geoff Anderson
August 7, 2019

Charlie Hunter/Lucy Woodward Dazzle Denver, CO August 2, 2019 Is it possible to trace Charlie Hunter's musical evolution by the number of strings on his guitar? Back when he hit the scene in the early '90s, he played a massive 8 string guitar. (Although he was on seven string guitar for his first album, he stuck with the 8 string starting with his second album in 1995 for roughly the next decade.) The three low ...

Recording

Portland Jazz Sensation Shelly Rudolph Teams Up With Charlie Hunter For New Single 'I Love Love'

Source: Cyber PR
June 1, 2024

Listen to “I Love LOVE” Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter Shelly Rudolph is set to captivate audiences again with her latest single, “I Love LOVE." This soulful and funky song celebrates the universal power of love. Teaming up with renowned jazz-soul artist Charlie Hunter, trumpeter Cyrus Naibipoor, and drummer Reinhardt Wolfgang Melz, Rudolph delivers a track that promises to delight music lovers of all genres. “I Love LOVE" began as a poem, as many of my songs do, but when I stepped ...
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Video / DVD

StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Charlie Hunter Trio with Lucy Woodward

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
July 14, 2019

This week, let's take a look at some videos featuring guitarist Charlie Hunter's latest trio with singer Lucy Woodward and drummer Keita Ogawa, who are coming to St. Louis to perform on Sunday, July 28 at Off Broadway. Hunter, whose distinctive technique on the seven-string guitar lets him play leads, bass lines and accompaniment more or less simultaneously, has played St. Louis a number of times in recent years with various configurations of musicians. And while he's frequently used the ...
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Education

Charlie Hunter to Present Master Class on Saturday, June 23 at City Music

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
June 6, 2012

Guitarist Charlie Hunter, who's known for his ability to play leads, chords and basslines simultaneously on a custom-built seven-string guitar, will present a master class at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, June 23 at City Music and Education Center, 9291 Watson Rd. Hunter (pictured) will be in St. Louis that weekend to perform Friday and Saturday nights at Jazz at the Bistro. The master class is open to vocalists and instrumentalists of all types, not just guitar players. Attendees are encouraged to ...
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183

Performance / Tour

Charlie Hunter Trio: Live Stream this Friday

Source: Todd Altschuler
March 1, 2011

On Friday March 4, there will be another exciting “Live from the Llama" webcast. Presented by Telluride Jazz Celebration, the Live from the Llama webcast series gives music lovers from around the world a chance to enjoy concerts emanating from Telluride's premier live music venue. The next band to be beamed into cyberspace is the Charlie Hunter Trio. As always, Hunter will be demonstrating his virtuosity on a custom-made 7-string guitar on which he simultaneously plays guitar and bass lines. ...
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103

Performance / Tour

Charlie Hunter: Tour Dates

Source: JamBase
February 4, 2011

FEBRUARY RESIDENCY AT ROSE LIVE MUSIC IN BROOKLYN, NY Charlie Hunter has lined up some tour dates in support of his second solo outing, Public Domain. The dates include a month-long February residency at Rose Live Music in Brooklyn, NY. Check out the itinerary below and click here to download “Limehouse Blues" off the new album. TOUR DATES

02/03/11 Thu Rose Live Music Brooklyn, NY 02/10/11 Thu Rose Live Music Brooklyn, NY 02/17/11 Thu Rose Live Music Brooklyn, NY 02/18/11 ...
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Music Industry

Jambase Questionnaire: Charlie Hunter

Source: JamBase
November 17, 2010

Welcome back to JamBase's baker's dozen to the bright lights of the music world. Last time we heard from Soulive. Solo guitar performance is one of the oldest, grandest traditions in the blues and jazz fields. It's a brave, exposed display of talent that works as an intimate conversation between the musician and listeners. It's been 10 years since Charlie Hunter stripped down to his 7 & 8-string skivvies, and Public Domain (released September 14 on Reapandsow) finds the fleet-fingered ...
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201

Recording

Charlie Hunter Goes for Harder Jazz Groove

Source: Michael Ricci
February 23, 2010

As a child, jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter lived in a hippie commune and traveled the country in a hippie bus. But don't call him a hippie kid. “I wasn't a hippie kid; I was a kid with a hippie mom," says Hunter, 42. “I have absolutely zero affinity for the culture. When you're a kid growing up in it, most of it's a pretty futile narcissistic endeavor. “I see kids today who think they're hippies. I say 'You guys are ...
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117

Performance / Tour

Guitarist Charlie Hunter to Play Seattle's Jazz Alley

Source: Seattle Jazz Scene
December 7, 2009

Like a snake shedding its skin, guitarist Charlie Hunter creates a new band every time he gets restless and feels a growth spurt coming on. But no matter what instrumentation or players he assembles, Hunter is dedicated to what he calls “rhythm music," organized around his ever-evolving conception of the groove. He introduces his latest project on Tuesday when he opens a two-night run at Jazz Alley with a quintet featuring slyly funky drummer Eric Kalb and three horns. Kalb ...
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137

Interview

Guitarist Charlie Hunter Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
November 9, 2009

Jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter is not a musician who's comfortable resting on his laurels. With nearly twenty albums under his belt and no sign of stopping in sight, Hunter continues to wow audiences with the wizardry of his seven-string guitar technique, by which he lays down bass grooves and simultaneously wings guitar solos along the frets with flawless finesse. This has earned him a reputation as an intrepid musician and an incredible showman who draws packed crowds into jazz clubs ...
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163

Event

Charlie Hunter August Residency - Four Intimate Shows at Rose Live Music

Source: Michael Ricci
July 20, 2009

BROOKLYN, NY -- Guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter will be camping out in Williamsburg this August, playing four consecutive Sundays at the intimate ROSE LIVE MUSIC space on Grand Street. The Rose residency is being presented by NYC’s energetic progressive jazz promoters at SEARCH AND RESTORE, in conjunction with the “BROOKLYN EXPERIMENTS” series, which regularly holds down Sunday nights at Rose. And the experiments look to prove particularly fruitful in Brooklyn this August. In addition to performing ...
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