A Conversation with Charlie Hunter  (continued)

PM: So, are there ways you'd like to say that New York has changed your life?

CH: Oh, yeah. It made a man out of me.

PM: Really?

CH: For sure, yeah.

PM: Made a man out of you.

CH: I mean, there are just the baddest cats around here, and it made me really want to shed a lot, and work on my stuff, so that I didn't look like a sad idiot on a gig.

PM: [laughs] Where are you guys living in the city, what borough?

CH: I lived in Brooklyn for about four years, and now we're out in Jersey.

PM: Oh, yeah?

CH: Brooklyn West. I'm in Essex County, like near Newark.

PM: So what about Blue Note? Are you done with them?

CH: Yeah. That's over.

PM: Who's putting out the next record, and what will it be like?

CH: I don't know who's putting it out yet. But it's a quintet thing.

PM: Because that's how you're gigging in the city?

CH: Yeah, and just around. I'm putting together this quintet thing because I really wanted to write for horns. And it's a cool group. It's got trombone, tenor, and chromatic harmonica.

PM: Who's the harp player?

CH: His name is a Gregoire Maret.

PM: Where's he from?

CH: He's from Europe.

PM: He's a Frenchman, or...?

CH: He's from Geneva. But he's awesome, man. He played with Jimmy Scott for a while. And I mean, he's playing with everyone now, because the secret is out. [laughs]

PM: That's almost my favorite reed.

CH: Oh, he's incredible, wait until you hear it. He definitely is the next step for that instrument.

PM: Wow!

CH: Oh, definitely. There's no one else around who can touch what he's doing.

PM: Because it's such an expressive sound, and it's not overbearing, it's never too loud.

CH: No.

PM: And it's just so delicate and so much, really, like a singer. Oh, wow, that's exciting.

CH: Yeah.

PM: So we don't have to go into why it's done with Blue Note. Things just run their course.

CH: Yeah. My time was up.

PM: But you made some really good records with them.

CH: Yeah -- for them.

PM: [laughs]

CH: [laughs] That's a big difference.

PM: [laughs] Thank you, I hear that. So I wonder, who might it be? Are you looking at labels?

CH: Yeah, we've got a few little things. And it's going to be a small label, just because I'm really getting more and more disinterested in the gigantic, corporate music reality. It's not what I'm interested in doing, and it doesn't really work for someone who's small like me. Maybe the distribution would work, but not the record label, all of that mumbo-jumbo, it just kind of grosses me out.

PM: All the overhead and the corporate bullshit, sure.

CH: Yeah, it's unnecessary. And then you're kind of linked to a lot of really awful things. Six degrees of separation, but you are, you know. And I don't really want to be a part of, in even a remote way, something that's really kind of gross.

PM: For instance?  continue

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