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LIANE HANSEN, host:
If you're listening to us today with a pair of earbuds, go ahead and take one of them out. The cover of jazz guitarist and composer Charlie Hunter's new CD proclaims that it's recorded "In Glorious Mono."
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HANSEN: No overdubs, mixed live to old-fashioned analog audio tape. The studio performance was captured by the finest 1950s technology. Charlie Hunter joins us from the studios of WHYY in Philadelphia. Hi, Charlie.
Mr. CHARLIE HUNTER (Musician): Hi.
HANSEN: I'm going to ask you about the recording process in a minute, but I have to ask you first about the title of your CD. It's awfully curious. It's called "Gentlemen, I Neglected To Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid." What's all that about?
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Mr. HUNTER: Well, it's a quote from a real older curmudgeonly musician that people have worked for and I cannot name names. But...
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Mr. HUNTER: ...it really did happen.
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. HUNTER: It really does happen. Let me put it that way.
HANSEN: It still does, but it's not something that you would do to any of your session people.
Mr. HUNTER: No way. No way. No way.
HANSEN: No. No.
Mr. HUNTER: I tell them exactly how little money they'll be getting paid up front.
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HANSEN: Good for you. All right, the technical question now: Why mono and why audio tape instead of digital recording?
Mr. HUNTER: Well, I mean, you know, it's something that I should've done years ago, I realize. You know, I mean, analog tape just - it just sounds better to me, you know. And what I do is a live medium. I never have overdubbed on any of my records. I mean, maybe a tambourine here or something like that, but more or less what you hear is what you get.
So, you know, for years, you know, we had been recording into Pro Tools. Before that we recorded multi-track tape and we would spend a week mixing and doing all of these things. And then it just dawned on me, well, I make my own records now and I have to pay for them. And, you know, I was, like, I only have $5,000 to make this next record, so what am I going to do?
You know, live to tape, of course, because you get the most bang for your buck that way. And then I thought, well, most of the music that I like and I listen to is in mono, so why don't I try something in mono, you know? And then I also realized that, well, you know, the stereo separation you get also gives you some, I guess what they say latency and time delay between the two different sides. So if you're hearing some really grooving music, it always grooves harder in mono because everything is in the same time. At least that's my opinion on the matter.
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HANSEN: Tell us about the band you're playing with.
Mr. HUNTER: Well, I have Eric Kalb on the drums, who's a fantastic drummer. He really gets that kind of '60s kind of R&B drumming mixed with the jazz drumming, which I really love that aesthetic. And some old, you know, Rolodex friends: Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, and Alan Ferber on trombone and Eric Biondo on trumpet.
HANSEN: And they have quite a bit of experience behind them. I mean, Eric was John Scofield's drummer.
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah.
HANSEN: And Curtis was with The Lounge Lizards.
Mr. HUNTER: Uh-huh.
HANSEN: And so forth. So, you know, these people have cred with the...
Mr. HUNTER: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
HANSEN: Yeah. But, you know, there's no bass player.
Mr. HUNTER: Oh, well, that's...
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Mr. HUNTER: That's me.
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Mr. HUNTER: There's no guitar player either, thank god.
HANSEN: Well, that's you.
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah.
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HANSEN: So you're playing on a - well, tell us about the guitar you're playing on.
Mr. HUNTER: Well, it's the guitar I play now is made by a guy name Jeff Traugott in Santa Cruz, California. And it's - I call it a seven-string guitar. I mean, it's a pretty arbitrary name. But it's got three bass strings tuned G-C-F and four guitar strings tuned C-F-D flat-D.
HANSEN: Yeah. You came to play for us back in 2003 in Studio 4A, and you had an eight-string guitar.
Mr. HUNTER: Mm-hmm.
HANSEN: But now you're down to seven. Is it, what, a recession? What?
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah.
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Mr. HUNTER: No. You know, the highest string, the highest guitar kind of side string just, you know, ultimately was getting in my way. And I realized I took it off for a gig and just realized that I like this better. I can actually play more music without having to manipulate this extra string. And it makes it more of an individualized instrument and distances it even, you know, farther from the, you know, basic, you know, American guitar concept.
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HANSEN: We put out the word on Twitter and Facebook that we were going to be talking to you, and we received a question from Whip Nelson(ph) who gives his location as Fogtown, Left Coast. So you can figure out whatever city that might be.
Mr. HUNTER: Oh. Okay.
HANSEN: But, he wants to know what your practice regimen is.
Mr. HUNTER: Well, you know, that's a great question. And, I mean, practice regimen is - it changes all the time as it should. I mean, when you're younger you can practice eight hours a day because you're just trying to figure out how to practice, you know. Years go by and you find different things you want to work on. And at the moment, I've been playing, but try to play about an hour of drum set a day, and that's not so that I can go out and, like, impress people with my drumming.
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Mr. HUNTER: It's more so that I can bring that concept to my instrument. And then I'll play my instrument for a couple hours and do some writing and, you know, stuff like that. And it's not necessarily how many hours you spend. It's how you spend those hours.
HANSEN: How does the drumming inform how you play the guitar?
Mr. HUNTER: Well, because it's totally predicated on how the parts work together. The - not as much the independence of the parts, but the interdependence - how these different parts work together to form a whole. And that's really where I feel like what I do on my instrument is - can be its own kind of unique thing. And so, it's important for me to feel that at its most basic element with, like, a real simple drum beat. And it's just, you know, I guess it's, you know, cross referencing or some kind of research, but that's essentially how it works.
HANSEN: Well, it does make sense because bass lines can often be percussive in the way that they work in music.
Mr. HUNTER: Oh, they have to be.
HANSEN: Yeah.
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HANSEN: You're currently on tour. You're playing tonight in Baltimore. You're working your way down to Fort Lauderdale, which means I must ask you about the cut on the new CD, "Ode to my Honda Odyssey."
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HANSEN: A lot of miles, right?
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah, lots of miles - almost 150,000 miles. I couldn't believe it that that car is just as, I mean, I'm knocking on wood right now because I'm out with it. But I can't believe that thing is as bomb-proof as it is because all I've done is change the oil. And maybe it's just a shameless attempt at getting some type of a promotional vehicle from Honda for my next tour.
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Mr. HUNTER: But, you know, I don't know, it's my favorite car I've ever had. And I've had a lot of really cool cars in my youth, you know. So I figured I'd have to at least come correct and write a tune for it.
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HANSEN: Well, Charlie Hunter, keep the oil changed on that thing.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: And have a good tour.
Mr. HUNTER: Thank you.
HANSEN: Charlie Hunter's new CD is called "Gentlemen, I Neglected to Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid." You can see a video of Charlie Hunter playing his unusual guitar and hear full cuts from the CD at nprmusic.org.
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