Eight String Wonder

by Bob Pomeroy

Charlie Hunter Quartet at the State Theatre, St. Petersburg, FL, Friday February 22, 2002

The program director at an area radio station has told me over and over again that there is no market for jazz. I looked around at the 350-plus people filling the State Theatre and wondered- where did this non-audience come from? A few were fellow gray beard jazz heads that I’ve seen at Emit concerts, but most of the crowd were 20-somethings kids, many wearing the colors of the Dave Matthews Band, Phish or the Grateful Dead. So that’s where the non-audience came from. They came from the rock world to jazz. Who would have thought that people might cross over genres?

The Charlie Hunter Quartet took the stage in a trio format. Saxophonist John Ellis was at the Thelonious Monk Competition in Washington, DC, so Hunter and trombonist Josh Roseman and drummer Johnny Didacovich carried on without him. Adapting to a stripped-down format didn’t phase the players. In fact, if I didn’t know better I would have assumed they played in this configuration all the time. Hunter is the heart of the outfit, holding down guitar and bass parts on a custom made guitar. Hunter’s style is something of a post-modern Wes Montgomery. His phrasing is clean and concise. He uses electronics to extend the range of his instrument. At times, it sounded like there were bass, guitar and organ parts coming out of Hunter’s guitar. Roseman proved equal to the task of sharing the spotlight. He used a variety of mutes to color his trombone’s tone while spinning out melodic lines and counter point to Charlie’s guitar. Didacovich provided a funky rhythmic foundation to hold it all together.

Charlie Hunter steers a fairly safe passage between traditional bebop stylings and fusion pyrotechnics. I was very pleased that Hunter made no effort to dumb down his performance for the jam band kids in the audience. The soloing by the members of the trio was focused and always served the songs. The only time the soloing started to slip toward noodling was during the encore when members of the opening act, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, joined the trio.

So what does it mean that 350 people turned out on a Friday night to groove along with Charlie Hunter? I think it means that the people in radio and a lot of the jazz media have blinders on. There are folks out there who respond to the music when they hear it. Younger people are discovering jazz from free improv-oriented rock and not from tradition bound magazines and program directors. I personally don’t care for most of the jam bands I’ve heard over the years, but now I’m seeing that they are doing good in the world.