This didn't make it in the paper ...

(Wrote this little ditty on jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter. He's at Kirk Avenue Music Hall next week.. didn't make it in Roanoke Star-Sentinel,so here it is)

Jazz guitarist has always followed his own path

Since opening several months ago the Kirk Avenue Music Hall in downtown
Roanoke has provided an intimate setting for touring acts. Its all table and chairs, just over a 100-person capacity, the type of closeness that jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter likes. He’s at Kirk Avenue Music Hall (22 Kirk Ave.) on April 2.

A San Francisco area native now living in New Jersey, Hunter is known for playing custom seven and eight string guitars. He also learned much of his craft on the streets in places like Paris and Zurich. “I didn’t have the music school experience that most of the people I played with have had. I’m really kind of glad [because] playing on the street with all these really great musicians was really kind of learning music the old way,” said Hunter from New Jersey last week. “Thrown in the fire, you play all day long, under some pretty harsh conditions. It’s just a great training ground. It served me well.”

Hunter’s new jazz CD release is Baboon Strength. He’s always followed his
own path. “If I had a nickel for every person that’s advised me on how I should be playing music I’d have a whole lot more money than I did from actually playing.”

Baboon Strength is his first self-release after many years of recording on other labels. “It is probably one of the easiest records I’ve ever made. It’s been a great experience.” His custom guitars give him freedom and a different sound. “I just don’t think of music in those rigid terms. I think on a much wider scale.”

Hunter likens his extra-string guitars to a harmonic-melodic drum set, where he can play bass and lead guitar at the same time. “There’s a lot of space that I’m occupying and it also allows the music to move a little differently.”

A true jazz aficionado, most of what he likes is self-termed “fuddy-duddy” jazz, recorded before The Beatles, R&B and soul helped changed the popular music landscape. “Jazz [became] a lot less interesting to me,” said Hunter, who puts his own spin on the genre in any case. (listen to music samples at charliehunter.com)

Hunter prefers intimate spaces like Kirk Avenue Music Hall: “that’s the best kind of way you can play in my opinion. You’re right there and everyone’s in it together. There’s not that distance.” Go to kirk avenuemusic.com for more on The Charlie Hunter Duo concert (with Eric Kalb) on April 2.