Charlie's back! This time he sheds the "skins" of Scott Amendola, who many of you are accustomed to seeing play with Charlie here at Dana Street, for the likes of Curtis Fowlkes (trombone - Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, John Zorn, Sheryl Crow) and Bobby Previte (drums - Johnny Copeland, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Tom Waits, Victoria Williams). And of course, with Charlie masterfully playing guitar and bass lines at the same, it's like having a quartet, really.
A departure from his duet play, Charlie's latest is an album of 10 original tunes. No slight to Amendola, so fans of those two need not worry - they'll be back. But in Charlie's words, regarding the play of drummer Previte: "“He’s probably known as a composer more than anything else,” Hunter says. “But he’s always been one of my favorite drummers. He came up in the 1960s, and he has the beat. You have to have lived it to have that feel. Because of his composer’s mind, we can play the simplest groove and it becomes something really exciting and compositional.”
As for the current incarnation of Charlie's musical muse, his website puts it this way : "After several years of focusing on his stripped-down duo with drummer Scott Amendola, Hunter wanted to expand his textural and orchestrational possibilities. He had called on Fowlkes for his 2003 quintet album Right Now Move (Ropeadope) and couldn’t resist his huge, soul-drenched sound and vivid palette for his new trio. “Conceptually I’ve been doing a duo thing with Scott that I love, but I wanted to have that third voice,” Hunter says. “I wanted somebody with a vibe who understands free improv and Al Green and Frank Sinatra and Sam Cooke. I wanted someone who can sing on their horn. I needed Curtis.”