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Arts & Entertainment

Summertime, and the Living is Jazzy

Trombonist Stafford Hunter will perform some Ellington and originals in New Brunswick.

You can see sea shells any day at the beach but how often do you get to hear them?

The shells Stafford Hunter will bring to his Aug. 17 concert in New Brunswick weren’t collected at the Shore, they’re musical instruments he will play during his performance, which is part of the New Brunswick Jazz Project concert series.
 
The shells, which range in size from around 4 inches to 2 feet, are actual sea shells that Hunter purchases in stores and cuts and sands so that he can make music with them.

It’s a long and painful process, he says, “but the end is result is beautiful, so I go through the trouble.”
 
Hunter’s main instrument is the trombone, which he plays with the Duke Ellington Orchestra and with artists like Aretha Franklin (he played at her recent free concert in Brooklyn) and during concerts like the one he’ll perform at the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick.
 
During the concert, Hunter will be joined by his quartet featuring Orrin Evans on keyboards, Alex Hernandez on bass and Chris Brown on drums. Part of the concert will also see Hunter joined by saxophonist Todd Bashore, who also plays in the Ellington orchestra.
 
“The concert might include some Ellington,” Hunter says, “but probably a lot of original music I released on a record a few years ago called ‘Honestly Speaking.’”
 
 Hunter’s life in music began when he was in sixth grade in Atlantic City.
 
“Back in the day when they really pushed kids to participate in the arts, they would do things like have the older kids bring in their instruments and play for us,” Hunter says. “And of course we were all like, ‘Ooh, the cool, older kids are playing.’”

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After that program, he says, everyone wanted to play an instrument but after a few weeks, only about a dozen were still playing. “But somehow I stuck with it.”
 
 He knew so little about music back then that he was stumped when teachers asked him what instrument he wanted to pay.

“I had no idea, I just wanted to be cool like the older guys,” he says. “I looked on the wall and I saw a picture of a guy with a saxophone and I said, ‘How about that.’ And they said, ‘We have too many of those, how about this?’ And they pulled out a trombone and I said, ‘OK, whatever.’”
 
Later, he realized the sax player in the picture was Charlie Parker. “I guess I was destined to play jazz,” he says.
 
He’s been playing the trombone ever since, even though he’s had something of a rocky relationship with it.

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“I hate it some days and love it some days,” he says. “A brass instrument is not very kind to you, particularly if you’re not practicing. It will kick your butt the next day if you take off for a day, it will kick you for the next three or four days.”
 
But another part of him loves the trombone because it’s different from other instruments, it’s not as low as a tuba and not as high as the trumpet. And the slide factor, he says, gives it flexibility and makes it the instrument closest to the human voice.
 
“It’s a very unique instrument,” he says.
 
When asked to name his musical influences, he mentions the legendary JJ Johnson, but expresses a particular fondness for Curtis Fuller.

“JJ was pure genius, and Curtis had flaws and I think I was always attracted to those flaws and the beautiful dirt and grind that he got in there,” Hunter says. “You could hear him struggling and trying and I guess I’m a campaigner for the little man, the underdog.”
 
Shortly after Hunter took up the trombone, his family moved to Philadelphia, and the city’s vibrant music scene helped sparked his love of jazz. Another Philly trombonist, Robin Eubanks, is also an influence.
 
One thing Hunter says is required of a trombone player is practice, skipping just a few days, he says, can set him back.

“A couple of days would take me a week and a half to feel comfortable again,” he says. “It’s metal on flesh, that’s the problem.”

The Stafford Hunter Quartet will perform at the Hyatt Hotel, 2   Albany St. in New Brunswick on Aug. 17 from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. There is no cover charge. For information, go to nbjp.org. For information about Stafford Hunter, go to staffordhunter.com.

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