Bay Area product Charlie Hunter returns to his old stomping grounds May 14-16 for a three-day stopover at Yoshi's San Francisco. The trouble with Charlie has always been that he's too damn talented and prolific for his own good. Contemporary jazz guitarists don't get a lot of play these days, but Hunter is one of the best there is. His melodic, groove-oriented style is best described as fluid yet thick, and he's able to coax notes out of his custom, 7-string axe (which alleviates the need for a separate bass player) beyond the reach of conventional musicians. The onetime Berkeley High product has released a staggering seventeen albums since 1993, suggesting, perhaps, he's able to record in his sleep. Either that, or he doesn't sleep at all.
Charlie's most recent release, Baboon Strength, is another solid entry in his catalog. It's filled with laid-back, unpretentiously rockin' tunes like "Athens" and "Welcome to Frankfurt," and the band nails the organtastic Squeeze homage "Difford-Tillbrook," which always seems like it's just about to segue into "Tempted" (but never does) every time you listen to it. For his Yoshi's shows, Hunter will be performing as a duo, with Dirty Dozen Brass Band's Terence Higgins, which should make the proceedings even more intimate than his usual trio set-up.
The Bay Area's indigenous Latin musica scene is blazing right now, with urban-identified groups like Bayonics, Bangdata, and Brwn Bflo, and solo artists like Rico Pabon, Femi, and Deuce Eclipse carrying a torch lit years ago by Santana, Malo, and Pete Escovedo. There's so much happening in that neck of the woods, it's easy to overlook someone like Erick Santero, an up-and-coming local producer/vocalist/DJ, whose second album, El Hijo de Obatala, drops May 19th on City Hall Records. As his name suggests, Santero is a practitioner of Santeria, the element-affirming religion which merges African orishas with Christian saints, which kinda explains the voodoo that he do on this record.
Just as yesteryear's Latin acts integrated cultural elements into the reigning pop culture of that time--rock and R&B--Santero performs audio alchemy on El Hijo de Obatala, freely fusing electronic music, reggaeton, salsa, and traditional folk elements into a surprisingly sublime mix of classic Latin grooves and fresh urban beats. Special guests Femi and Deuce Eclipse--both of whom appear at Santero's CD release party this Friday at Mighty --also appear on the album, whose title means "the son of Obatala."
The CD release party promises to be quite festive. Santero plays with a seven-piece band, and the bill also includes Dos Four & Los Mios, Carne Cruda, Los Rakas, DJs Mr. E, Leydis, Rascue and Marcella, and the aforementioned Deuce Eclipse and Femi. Discount pre-sale tix are available here.
