Fri, Oct 7 - 9pm - $20

The true mark of an artist is his willingness to creatively surge into new territory. Throughout his career, Charlie Hunter has avoided pitfalls of predictability by bringing new ideas to the table and seeking out new cohorts to collaborate with. The eight-string guitarist-bandleader recorded his first Blue Note album, Bing, Bing, Bing! with a tenor saxophone-drum trio, then added an alto saxophone to the mix for his next two recordings, Ready, Set...Shango! and the Bob Marley cover project Natty Dread. He threw a curveball last year with Return of the Candyman when he retired the horn section and enlisted vibes player Stefon Harris and percussionist John Santos to join him and longtime drummer Scott Amendola in a new quartet called Pound for Pound. For his latest outing, Hunter once again pulls off a remarkable change of pace by linking up with extraordinary drummer Leon parker for Duo, a superb collection of ten tunes that run the jazzy gamut from bluesy shuffles and deep-grooved funk to hushed balladry and straight ahead romanticism."I was excited by the prospect of working in a Duo setting," says Hunter, who co-produced Duo with engineer Joe Ferla. "It's scary and challenging at the same time. Its like flying a helicopter. You have to be on at every moment. Every limb is doing something. There's no rest and no time to recoup your energy. After one hour you're totally expended." He pauses, then notes how important it is to take fresh directions. "Life is too short to beat dead horses. When a certain project has spiritually and musically lived out its life, then it's time to put it to bed. On the other hand, if the music is still exciting and vital, I'll make as many records as it takes for it to run its course."While Hunter played a number of duo dates over the years with his San Francisco Bay rhythm mate Amendola, when the guitarist moved to Brooklyn in late 1997, he set out to find a simpatico drummer to jam with. What better place to start than Leon Parker, who kept the beat steady in pianist Jacky Terrasson's trio as well as released a couple excellent discs for Colombia as a leader. "I was a big fan of Leon's music," says Hunter. "I thought he'd be the perfect person to work with on a Duo album." Ferla, who had done studio work with Parker before, concurred.But it was a chance encounter in Brooklyn that led to the recording sessions. Hunter recalls, "I ran into Leon on a street one day. We talked for quite a while about music in general and then what I had in mind. He wasn't very familiar with my albums, which was a good thing because we developed a style of playing together that wasn't built on preconceived notions." The results? "Oh, man, Leon is a genius. Hooking up with him made my playing so much better. He's so honest in his drumming and he brings 150 percent to the music. His timing is perfect, and he has great taste. He plays all the right things. It was an inspiration to play with him."Another stimulant that has spurred on Hunter's music is his new stomping ground. "Just meeting and then getting tt play with someone like Leon is why I came here," he says. "I'm being constantly inspired by people, which sets off a chain of events for more exploration. It's been one constant chain reaction since I moved here." Duo, the first disc Hunter recorded in New York, affirms that he feels right at home in the jazz mecca.The CD opens with the ebullient Mean Streak, an older number written during a time when Hunter was immersed in Cuban music. Over the years he played the tune in concert with his different groups, but it took on a new life when he and Parker rehearsed it. It's the only tune of the pack with overdubs, with Parker adding extra percussion and a snare drum solo. That track is followed by the deeply swinging "Belief", a Parker tune from his album of the same title. " I like Leon's writing,: says Hunter, who adds, "This is one of my favorites.""Do That Then", written by the Bay Area-based Scott Jensen, opens on a quiet note then develops into a pensive groove. Originally Hunter and Parker were trying to push the number into an uptempo funk realm, but the results were unsatisfying. "After attempting several takes, it just didn't work," says Hunter, whose eight-string wizardry frees him to play lead as well as lay down the bass line. "We were going to forget it and move on, but then we decided to take it slow. We hit it on the first take."Hunter renders the jazz standard "You Don't Know What Love Is" "super straight," making romance by sticking close to the melody line. He comments, "I love amp vibrato, which gives this tune an old guitar sound." After the ballad, the duo bursts out for Recess, a romp that switches gears rhythmically into the shuffle zone and features Hunter howling in glee in the background. "That's inspired by gospel music. I'd been listening to a lot of music by the Soulstirrers, Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples with Lucky Peterson on organ. Leon and I were having so much fun on the groove that I decided I didn't need to solo. That's why the tune is so short." As for those wails, Hunter jokes, "I just had the feeling, what can I say?"The duo cools the tempo back down on the next track, a hushed rendition of Brian Wilson's "Don't Talk" from the Beach Boys' classic album Pet Sounds. "We wanted to create a mood. So as not to detract from the beauty of the tune, we decided it didn't need improvisation." This is followed by the blues-drenched beboppish number "The Last Time" (with Parker on congas and caxixi, a Brazilian shaker), the furtive "Dark Corner" (the first tune the pair recorded in the three-day sessions) and the cooking "The Spin Seekers". The album closes with a soca vibe on "Calypso for Grandpa", a little ditty dedicated to Hunter's 87-year-old grandfather who "can still swing a mean baseball bat."As if Hunter hasn't taken enough adventures on Duo, the guitarist has also been involved in a couple of extracurricular projects. He recorded an album with Galactic's Stanton Moore (a trio date also featuring saxophonist Skerik) and appears on a couple tracks of R&B pop star D'Angelo's album. Plus, he's preparing to go into the studio with drummer Mike Clark on his new project, which also stars saxophonist Kenny Garrett.What's up next? No telling at the moment, but whatever new path he takes, one thing is certain: Hunter is going to be tuned in creatively. "I know I'm never going to sell a million records," he says. "But even if I could I know that when music starts being dominated by commerce, it's on the road to ruin. Good music is made with good intentions. I owe it to my audience which is very diverse and very smart and expects me to throw curve balls."

Carla Bozulich is best known as the powerful singer for the L.A.­based band, The Geraldine Fibbers. Before that, she was the gamine howler in the confrontational sex assault outfit, Ethyl Meatplow. She has one of the most unique voices in any genre (she was, I believe, nominated for “Best Female Vocalist," and "Best Male Vocalist" one year in BAM Magazine!). She's also a painter, writer, and has directed a video for the Fibbers. Her work is at once brutally raw and weirdly visionary.Born in New York City in the last week of 1965, Carla spent her first couple of years in Greenwich Village. Mom and Dad were into the downtown jazz and books scene. Maybe this, combined with the late 60's atmosphere of tumult, crushed idealism, and death could account for what inspired Carla's penchant for the defiant truth and exquisite pain in her work. Drama led to upheaval. Upheaval led to Los Angeles' harbor town, San Pedro. Longshoremen. Lowriders. Betty Crocker with a knife. Pedro's the best! If only there were time to show you the whole town right now!Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mose Allison, Parliament, Roberta Flack—Thanks, Mom and Dad. Black Sabbath, Elton John, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, Alice Cooper — not to mention Styx and Heart — thanks, Sis. She can also still sing you every word of Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life." At twelve she discovered Patti Smith (Oh, shit!) on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell. Heard the Minutemen play for the first time. T-Rex and Bowie and Sabbath and Styx. Then it all started breaking open. The Damned, Sex Pistols, Devo, The Pretenders, the Dead Kennedys, UXA, The Germs, Pere Ubu. Then Lydia Lunch, Iggy, ESG, Descendants, Leaving Trains, The Bags. By way of meeting Gary Kail, (guitarist in Carla's first band, The Neon Veins), she heard stuff like Neu, The Fall, Can, Alan Watts on KPFK, John Cage, The Shaggs, The Slits, etc. Carla's first appearance on record is from Gary's 1982 album, "Zurich 1916," "You know — telephone and vacuum cleaner stuff". She sang in a couple of groups: The Neon Veins, and then The Invisible Chains, who recorded an album for The Minutemen's New Alliance label when Carla was 18 years old, Mike Watt shelling out $500 for two funny days at Radio Tokyo.Carla disappeared from daylight for a few years, which she blames entirely on Motörhead and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. At 21, she re-emerged to co-create Ethyl Meatplow, a band that one can say without exaggeration was ahead of its time. No shame and no guitars. "We were there to shake things up. At that time, without guitars or hetero machismo a band just plain sucked. That was fun and it kept the cool people away.” Their sequenced insanity inspired folks all over the US to dance, disrobe, beat-off, or beat them up. Several releases and five years later, the Industrial Dance Diva had written a few good country songs in her downtime on the road.She formed The Geraldine Fibbers in 1993, during the last gasp of Ethyl Meatplow. Audiences didn't skip a beat and just started showing up in cowboy boots instead of whipped cream and unwound cassette tape. The band was well-loved by fans and the press alike. Having released some stuff through Sympathy For The Record Industry, they found themselves being flown around by huge record companies who couldn't live without them. They chose Virgin. "God, it sure seemed right .... oh well." says Carla. They released two albums. With the addition of the intensely creative Nels Cline on guitar, the second album, "Butch," was even more dynamic. The single from the album, "California Tuffy," generated a video directed by Carla ­ one unedited shot of manic instrument assault, fire, and rambunctious hijinx, including a miming rubber cat. Showered with good press, both albums were acclaimed to be in the top albums of the decade by some respected journalists. The band toured 10 months a year. The fans were thrilled. Who knows what happened. Actually, we just don't have time to go into it. Anyway, neither album sold (by major label standards) and the band was dropped in 1998. Many had pegged The Geraldine Fibbers as a shoe-in for some kind of success — blunders, bad luck, lack of ambition and plain weirdness made it unattainable, sending them into hibernation.Carla and Nels Cline then created Scarnella. "I felt like I needed a project that couldn't be touched by the gross pigshit that is the music business". Scarnella is decidedly open, experimental, often instrumental, an art-for-art's-sake sorta thing. For Carla it's a "super-great way to clean out the muck and get down to what it means to spontaneously create." First they did James Brown's "Hot Pants" for a Zero Hour tribute album and then released an album on Smells Like Records. The duo continues to perform, sometimes doing songs, sometimes entirely improvising their sets.Carla scored an independent feature film called “By Hook Or By Crook.” An official Sundance selection for 2002, it garnered awards at festivals in the U.S. and abroad. On a Tom Waits tribute album, she recorded a haunting rendition of his tune, "On The Nickel." She created a song called "Blue Boys" for a Kill Rock Stars comp, played on the Destroy All Nels Cline album and sang on ex-Devo drummer Dave Kendrick's newest “Empire Of Fun” CD. She did a duet with Victor Krummenacher of Camper Van Beethoven on his latest project and sang some tracks with Lydia Lunch that'll rear their lovely heads soon, we hope. Carla also collaborates with avant-garde singer Bonnie Barnett and is hoping to record something soon. She has also created a special score for a production of Jean Genet's play, “The Maids.”Carla recently threw her first "Fake Party," which she describes as "New Music dressed up as a party meets a social event disguised as art." A Fake Party is a performance based on the architecture of the "party" space. Carla selected the Schindler House in Los Angeles — a combination of hyper-modernism and a sort of primitive simplicity — for her first Fake Party. Rudolph Schindler and his friends were artists and eccentrics who threw decadent parties involving every kind of imaginable no-no. Carla spent weeks scripting and choreographing a guide for the evening's accidents, experiments, and blatant, loving insincerity. Twenty fellow artists/musicians were recruited to make the experience as fake as possible. The music was improvised with a tight structure, except when Carla was lip-synching to her own voice along with jazz hits of yesteryear stolen from dusty LP's. The evening's sounds resonated into the Hollywood sky like question marks shot from a loaded gun. Heck, there's a lot more to tell, but we don't have time.After the “Red Headed Stranger,” what's next? Who knows? There are several possible directions ... She intends to make a solo album, finish her book of horses and, of course, she wants to make a little film to accompany her recent re-working of the “Red Headed Stranger” album. All that can be said for sure is that she'll certainly be off somewhere working like an obsessive silkworm .... at whatever she wants.