Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Charlie Hunter & Scott Amendola @ Jazz Alley

Charlie Hunter
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For the last couple years I've been enjoying going to a concert a month. I love live music of all kinds. Seattle has a lot of great local venues and musicians, and we are also lucky so many touring musicians enjoy playing here. Many of the musicians whose work I follow are guitarists from several genres. Tonight I got to see jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter (above) for the first time, playing at Jazz Alley with drummer Scott Amendola (below). Their improvising was really wonderful. I'd heard recordings, but had never seen Hunter play and couldn't believe my eyes when I realized he was in effect playing bass lines over inventive melody lines, chords and harmonics all at the same time on his 7 string guitar. I've seen Bruce Cockburn similarly use his thumb as his own complete rhythm section while playing complex compositions on a 6 string, but Hunter's fluidity and speed while playing inventive jazz/rock/funk/blues and riffing off Amendola's considerable contributions and vice-versa were beyond unreal to behold.Very fun set!
Scott Amendola

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