CHARLIE HUNTER TRIO

Ruggedness suits Charlie Hunter, a groove-minded guitarist known for his distinctly ambidextrous technique. On “Mistico,” his first album for the Fantasy label, he rarely reaches for a dazzling run where a juicy riff will do the trick. His main pursuit seems to be the unpretentious logic of a working band and the freedom to do with it what he pleases.

His current partners are Erik Deutsch, on acoustic and Fender Rhodes pianos as well as Casiotone keyboard, and Simon Lott, on drums. Mr. Deutsch is an especially valuable resource here, as a solo commentator and, much more important, an accompanist. On “Special Shirt” he alternates between modish camp and a species of saloon piano, subtly shaping the mood; on “Speakers Built In” he finds real use for some usually ill-advised synthesizer sounds.

Ten fingers and a seven string guitar: CD Review, Charlie Hunter Trio's Mistico
The Audiophiliac - Steve Guttenberg, August 6, 2007

It seems like Charlie Hunter has always played a Novax eight string guitar, but for the new CD he slimmed the neck down and nixed a string.

Even so, those remaining seven strings never sounded better than they do on Mistico (Fantasy Records). Hunter's a major genre jumper, he teamed up with DJ Logic in 2005 to make his Longitude CD, his all-instrumental Bob Marley homage Natty Dread was a career highpoint; his funk outfit TJ Kirk exclusively played reworkings of James Brown, Thelonious Monk, and Roland Kirk tunes; and early on he covered Kurt Cobain's "Come As You Are' on his first Blue Note CD, Bing Bing Bing! He's recorded something like 19 jazz CDs, but I have to admit there's more than a few clunkers in my collection. Even the better ones are a little uneven, but Mistico may be the best of all. And it's easily the most consistent, loaded with great Hunter penned tunes from start to finish. more

MISTICO
Allaboutjazz.com - Chris May

It's simple, lo-fi music, and we're told that most tracks were recorded in one or two takes, without any charts. There's only one ballad, "Estranged," with the rest in the main consisting of greasy mid-tempo guitar riffs bounced off fat drum backbeats. Uncluttered, rhythmically and harmonically unsophisticated, but always flowing, and played with total conviction. Simple in the best sense of the word.

It's also post-modern, in the best sense of that word, with Hunter's singular, twisted guitar textures and Erik Deutsch's inventive keyboard sonorities mashed up with a host of rock and electric blues references going back over thirty years. Heliotropic psychedelic flashbacks figure large in the schema, in Deutsch's playing and in Hunter's too, and the leader's 7-string guitar (he's recently had the eighth string removed and the neck shaved down) sometimes sounds more like a revved up Hammond B3 or Mellotron than a string instrument. more

Charlie Hunter, “Mistico” (Fantasy Records)
BILLBOARD (ALSO RAN ON MSNBC.COM) July 30, 2007

After three wildly improvisational Groundtruther CDs with drummer Bobby Previte, Charlie Hunter emerges a changed man on “Mistico,” his debut on Concord’s resuscitated Fantasy imprint. The guitar/bass wiz returns to the trio setting of his early-’90s beginnings, and an ax with seven strings in lieu of eight. But this time, a keyboardist (Erik Deutsch mans piano, Fender Rhodes and CasioTone) is onboard along with drummer Simon Lott, and the tone is decidedly rocking, with no trace of Joe Pass within earshot. Hunter’s guitar tone is gnarled, gritty and edgy, all within the bluesy groove vein he’s consistently delivered. Though the session exudes lo-fi nonchalance, new compositional shape-shifting sparks in such tunes as “Speakers Built It” and “Spoken Word.” Blues and funk play significant roles, but thankfully Hunter delivers a slow tune, simply titled “Ballad,” that spotlights his most overlooked trait. Recommended highly.

With each album, Erin McKeown - singer, composer, guitarist - has found bolder ways of blending brooding jazz, sprightly surf, tangy country and twangy folk into one swiftly spun sound.
Pretty great for someone we thought would wind up as singularly dull as Tanya Donnelly.
Yet for McKeown to effortlessly distill those forms and more into wholly original cover versions, as she did throughout the first of two sold-out Tin Angel shows Thursday night, was astounding.
Whether laying down slinky guitar lines or bashing out punky ones, McKeown, a spunky 29-year-old with short, upswept hair, seemed to bounce on her heels.
She attacked a hyperactive "Paper Moon" with a high-life rhythm and traded diabolically melodic licks with pumping organist Erik Deutsch through a grooving "Get Happy" that would have made Judy Garland smile. more