CD Review

In their second collaboration, 8-string guitar maestro Charlie Hunter and drummer Bobby Previte reinvent their eclectic mix of sounds as a more aggressive trio on Longitude. Featuring jamband favorite DJ Logic on turntables in the rotating third spot, a somewhat commonplace instrumental addition to bands in recent years, Longitude still manages to explore new rock and jazz territory.

Recorded live in the studio, Longitude maintains an improvised feel while delivering an innovative blend of modern jazz, rock, and funk. “Transit of Venus”, the opening track, starts as a spacey acoustic drum and turntable duet before Charlie Hunter enters into the fray with his guitar skills for the first time, amazing the listener with his jazz-trained riffs.

“March 1741, Cape Horn” unfolds initially as a rolling groove, highlighted by Previte’s percussion virtuosity, and eventually mutates into a more aggressive version of itself, a buildup theme oft used on Longitude. “Course Made Good,” the following track continues the edgier theme starting with a pounding opening flush with Hunter’s guitars laying out the direction of things to come, before sliding into a dark finish.

Past attendees at Charlie Hunter concerts are very familiar with his ability to make one wonder how exactly a certain sound was made with a guitar. “How’d he do that?” is a question often asked about Hunter’s guitar work and “Medicean Stars” is a prime example of just this type of mind-bending musicianship. A slow, ambient instrumental experiment, the song sets the listener up well for the more rock-tinged “Jupiter Mask.”

The welcome, funky strains of “Back-Quadrant” descend into a crunching, drum-dominated piece that is, unfortunately, all too reminiscent of other tracks on this disk. While exploration, especially in the live setting, is one of the hallmarks of Groundtruther, the trio seems to be exploring the same ground several time on this effort.

Certainly the instrumentation and musicianship on LONGITUDE is top-notch, sometimes at the seeming expense of song composition. Hunter is as talented a jazz musician as is around these days and Previte more than carries his own on the drums, often times even stealing the show. Longitude provides some very blissful and truly experimental moments, though at times it seemed somewhat jumbled and bogged down in itself. It is, however, an excellent attempt at melding a variety of musical genres together, emblematic of the musical direction often taken by these three musicians.