Jazz Articles about McClenty Hunter

About McClenty Hunter

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Blue Fire - The Van Gelder Session

Read "Blue Fire - The Van Gelder Session" reviewed by Kyle Simpler

by Kyle Simpler
February 9, 2026

Many of Dave Stryker's recent albums focus on a particular idea or concept that serves as the recording's focal point. His Eight Track series (Strikezone 2013-2019) and Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies (Strikezone, 2025) serve as prime examples. With Blue Fire -The Van Gelder Session, the guitarist steps into the studio of legendary producer Rudy Van Gelder--literally--and he is right at home with this project. The Van Gelder studio produced some of the most memorable albums ...

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Blue Fire - The Van Gelder Session

Read "Blue Fire - The Van Gelder Session" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
January 9, 2026

Dave Stryker's Blue Fire--The Van Gelder Session features the guitarist performing at one of the most revered venues in recorded jazz, and the chosen setting is anything but incidental. Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's legendary Englewood Cliffs studio in July 2025, the album benefits from the ambiance itself. Its warmth, clarity, and a sense of history, while showcasing a deeply rooted guitar-organ-drums trio that understands groove as both discipline and release. Joined by organist Jared Gold and drummer McClenty Hunter, ...

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies

Read "Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
May 27, 2025

If this recording were named “Dave Stryker Plays Bernard Hermann" (or Miklós Rózsa or Elmer Bernstein), well that would be just fine. They were all gifted composers who wrote film scores. The consensus would likely be that a musician like Stryker was hardly wasting his time, but Stryker With Strings Goes to the Movies hits the hopelessly middlebrow button. So how seriously anyone decides to take the results is anyone's guess. That would be a pity, ...

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies

Read "Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 4, 2025

Guitarist Dave Stryker, who is at home in any venue, Goes to the Movies on this ambitious album, wherein his working quartet is greeted by a thirty-piece orchestra with strings and four talented guest artists. There are some gems here--Henry Mancini's “Dreamsville," Rodgers and Hammerstein's “Edelweiss," Ennio Morricone's theme from Cinema Paradiso among them--and a few pleasant surprises as well. Songs in the latter group include “You Only Live Twice," from the James Bond film of that ...

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Groove Street

Read "Groove Street" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
September 14, 2024

This is a throwback recording, but in a very good way. Time was someone could get in a car on a weekend morning, roll the window down, turn the FM up and drive to a happy place. It really did not matter much where: the music got you there because it was just that kind of straight ahead, in your face, bliss is it to be young sort of thing. In a big city such as Philadelphia a jazz station ...

Album Review

Javon Jackson & Nikki Giovanni: Javon & Nikki go to the movies

Read "Javon & Nikki go to the movies" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
September 10, 2024

Javon & Nikki go to the movies is a charming and soulful collaboration that brings together the poetic eloquence of Nikki Giovanni and the masterful tenor saxophone stylings of Javon Jackson. The album is a delightful journey through some of the standards of the Great American Songbook, featuring songs famously associated with classic Hollywood movies. The repertoire also draws from a broader range of sources, including three Jackson originals and one from the pen of Sonny Rollins. Jackson is accompanied ...

Album Review

The Dave Stryker Trio with Bob Mintzer: Groove Street

Read "Groove Street" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
January 12, 2024

The Dave Stryker Trio with tenor saxophonist Bob Mintzer is a captivating musical escapade. This collaboration not only showcases the talents of the two principals but also the two accompanying players, organist Jared Gold and drummer McClenty Hunter. Right from the initial notes of the opening track “Groove Street," a Dave Stryker original, the band sets itself up for success with Gold's classic organ shuffle as the launching pad. Stryker's guitar sizzles and Mintzer weaves a ...