CHIEF JUSTICE GARY HUBER SOUNDS OFF ON CHARLIE HUNTER
If you haven’t heard of the jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter, then you’re in an unfortunate majority. However, it was truly pleasant to see him at The Tralf (622 Main Street, Buffalo, downtown in the heart of the Theatre District next to Shea’s) on Halloween without a completely packed house. Right now, Hunter is the best jazz guitarist in the world, and to be mesmerized by him with the comfort of what I call a “buffer zone” (you know what I’m talking about – you go see a blockbuster movie at a Regal theatre on opening night and somebody’s sitting on both sides of you, and it’s ok if you know them but usually you only know one of those elbows, and the other elbow is some foreign object that makes it difficult to negotiate proper elbow placement on the arm of the chair, so your whole night is thrown off because you’re constantly thinking about where to put your elbow, on the front of the armrest or on the back), is what some say is a paradise.
Let me explain. Hunter invented a seven-string guitar that is comprised of two bass strings, five guitar strings, and two pickups. It’s easy to spot newcomers because they’re the ones looking around for the bass player. It’s like this: on his right hand he uses his thumb to play the two bass strings, and all his fingers to play the remaining five guitar strings; with his left hand, he mainly uses his middle finger to play the bass strings while the rest of his fingers play wicked little guitar solos. Ok, maybe this isn’t making any sense to you, but pick up the nearest shitty Harmony guitar your roommate bought from JC Penny and try just one complicated thing at a time, then imagine that multiplied by about three because that’s how hard it is to play complicated bass lines and awe-inspiring guitar solos at the same time. In the words of Jack Black, watching Charlie Hunter play guitar is the double-dip cream-dream thrill-ride of your life. You’ll never forget it.
When Hunter busted out, the media started labeling him acid jazz, which is a term that signifies drum-machine backed, sampled music and even upbeat covers of jazz standards (saxophonist Nicholas Payton has proved this genre’s description is inaccurate after all). “I don’t really know what acid jazz is,” says Hunter. “Sometimes the press needs a term to advertise something. We sometimes get resistance from mainstream [jazz] critics who label us [acid jazz]. What we play is accessible but not as accessible as all that.” In response to his dislike for the label, Hunter labeled himself “antacid jazz.” He explains, “I like to think of what I do as improvisational-oriented pop music. I’d say the only people doing what we’re doing is Medeski, Martin and Wood, and they’ve been doing it longer, taking improvised music to the people.” John Medeski agrees, saying, “Basically, we’re doing the same thing jazz did in the ‘40s and ‘50s. We’re playing improvised music informed by the better pop sensibilities of the day. We take the groove and dance music we grew up with and create something that has a little more depth to it. In a certain way, we are doing the same thing as Charlie. We have that link of improvisational music, but we’re making it relevant to what’s going on today.”
I’d like to point out what songs he played, but that’s near impossible because he only played songs that he recently recorded with local god turned drummer Bobby Previte. Previte, from Niagara Falls, used drum triggers and electronics to create a wall of ambiance that made Hunter’s guitar work seem even more out of this world. Yeah, so I’m gushing, but hey this show was great. It’s really hard to describe what kind of experience it was precisely because the album they just recorded together (with special guest Greg Osby) was recorded 99 percent live and 100 percent improved. Their double set, then, was 100 percent live and 100 percent improvisation, so it’s almost futile to attempt to recreate, thanks largely in part to the poverty of our language.
