for the New Zealand racehorse trainer and driver see: Charlie Hunter
Charlie Hunter
(born May 23, 1967) is an American guitarist, composer and bandleader.
First coming to prominence in the early '90s Hunter has since become one of the leading names in jazz, recording 17 albums. Hunter is noted for playing custom-made seven and eight-string guitars, on which he simultaneously plays basslines, rhythm guitar, and solos. Critic Sean Westergaard [2] describes Hunter's innovative guitar technique as "mind-boggling ... he's an agile improviser with an ear for great tone, and always has excellent players alongside him in order to make great music, not to show off."
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CHARLIE HUNTER QUARTET TICKETS
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Biography
Early years
Hunter was born in Rhode Island. When he was four his mom packed him and his younger sister in an old yellow school bus and headed west. After several years living on a commune in Mendocino County they settled in
Berkeley, California. Hunter graduated from Berkeley High School and took lessons from famed guitar teacher
Joe Satriani. At eighteen he moved to Paris. Returning to the Bay area, Hunter played a seven-string guitar and organ in
Michael Franti's political rap group,
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. In 1992, they were one of the opening acts for
U2's
Zoo TV Tour.
Since the debut of his self-titled
Charlie Hunter Trio
in 1993, Charlie Hunter has recorded 17 albums. He co-founded
Garage A Trois, a jazz fusion band with
Stanton Moore and
Skerik. He has collaborated with
Bobby Previte for an ongoing project entitled "Groundtruther." He also recorded and toured for Bobby Previte's
The Coalition of the Willing in 2006.
[3] He appears on acclaimed jazz bassist
Christian McBride's Live At Tonic
. On both
The Coalition of the Willing
and
Live at Tonic
he plays 6-string guitars. His earliest known released recording without unusual guitars is as a guest bassist for the band Sweet Potato from California's East Bay. The song "Crankshaft" can be found on the Ubiquity Records compilation
Mo Cookin
from 1994 and the song "Monkey Wrench" can be found on the Ubiquity Records compilation
Still Cookin
from 1995. He also plays guitar on the track "Me and Chuck" from the Les Claypool and the Holy Mackerel album,
Highball with the Devil
, released in 1996.
Charlie played in the band T.J. Kirk active 1990s that merged the music of Thelonius Monk, James Brown, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. T.J Kirk is: Will Bernard - Guitar, John Schott - Guitar, Charlie Hunter - 8-string guitar and
Scott Amendola - Drums. Three recordings of the time are called:
T.J. Kirk
August 8, 1995,
If Four Was One
September 24, 1996 and
Talking Only Makes it Worse
released in 2005.
In the summer of 2007, Charlie toured with a trio that included New York keyboardist
Erik Deutsch and New York/New Orleans drummer
Simon Lott. This trio recorded the July, 2007 Fantasy release
Mistico
. In 2008, Hunter recorded his first self-release, "Baboon Strength. Featured on the record are Erik Deutch on keys and Tony Mason on drums. Hunter will return to the studio in Fall of 2009 to record with drummer Eric Kalb.
Hunter was also an inaugural member of the
Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists.
[4]
Hunter believes in free trade of his live shows. Live shows can be streamed or downloaded in various formats on archive.org.
Instruments and equipment
Hunter currently plays a custom-made, seven-string guitar made by Jeff Traugott.
Previously, Hunter played a custom-made, eight-string
guitar made by
luthier Ralph Novak of Novax Guitars. He plays the lead guitar on the top five strings (tuned ADGBe) and bass guitar (tuned EAD) on the bottom three strings simultaneously. With the addition of a Hughes & Kettner Tube Rotosphere (a
Leslie rotary speaker simulator), his unique style produces a sound similar to that of a
Hammond organ -- an instrument he set out to imitate.
In 2006, Hunter removed the top guitar string and had the neck of his guitar reworked and now plays a modified 7-string on the formerly-8 string body. Hunter has mentioned that because of his small hands, he had to move out of position to make use of the 8th string and thus wasn't using it much. A change in Hunter's style away from the organ sound into a more blues and distortion based sound happened at the same time. After removing the 8th string, Hunter retuned all of the strings up a semitone: F - Asharp - Dsharp on the bass and Asharp - Dsharp - Gsharp - C on the guitar. Lately during 2008 he retuned once again up a minor 3rd: G-C-F on the bass and C-F-Asharp-D on the guitar.
References
- Gear information from the official website
- allmusic ((( Steady Groovin' > Overview )))
- http://ropeadope.com/press/bobbyprevite/ 02/18/2006
- Independent Music Awards - Past Judges