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Charles Unger

Charles Unger is an innovative professional Saxophonist and Artist living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area

About Me

A major force in the music scene of the San Francisco Bay area for the last 40 years, saxophonist Charles Unger is a musical institution. He is known for his exuberant style and talent, and for a stage show that is unforgettable.

A regular performer at various San Francisco clubs, Charles is an innovator in the genres of Jazz, R&B and World Beat. Charles, who plays alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, was deeply influenced by the seminal works of artists such as Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Grover Washington, Kenny Garrett and Lester Young, but has also drawn on a lifetime of experience playing with top level musicians the world over. Charles brings an undeniable sense of joy to his performances, with a smile that welcomes even the most recalcitrant listeners to the party, then proceeds to open up avenues of music that are enjoyable for the uninitiated and the aficionado alike.

In San Francisco, Charles plays every Wednesday and Friday evening at Les Joulins Jazz Bistro (where he has performed for more than 20 years), leading a jazz band that includes his wife Valencia on vocals on Friday evenings. He also plays at the Peacock Lounge, Sheba Lounge, Rasselas, Yoshi’s San Francisco, Intercontinental Hotel San Francisco, 57th Street Gallery in Oakland and many other places in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Charles released his latest album ”Around the World” in September 2014. His previous album, Mr. 2 AM, is a colorful set of jazz, World Beat and R&B. The music is bluesy, at times funky, atmospheric and infectious.

During the last four summers, Charles Unger Experience has performed in Sweden at the Jazz at the Malmö Festival, the Gothenburg Cultural Festival, in Båstad and at the Kristianstad/ Åhus Jazz Festival. He has also performed with the Swedish group Wavemakers in the musical ”A Dream of a Better Life” at multiple locations. During the summer of 2011, Charles toured Europe for the first time since 2005, and performed in Sweden, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris and in the South of France.

Charles Unger is a great player who loves what he is doing. Music for him is a spiritual mission and a quest for a kind of secular redemption that he has pursued since he was a child — one that sustains him and has brought him a wealth of knowledge and experience.

Charles Unger is a man of the world. “On my father’s side, we are an Afro-German mixture of people, Afro-Jewish mixture. My first influence was my father. He played all kinds of music and always recognized his European heritage. I’ve never wanted to be pigeon-holed in any one thing.”

Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a military family that moved often, Charles grew up in Riverside, California from the age of 7. “It was part of the great migration out of the south,” Charles says. “My family migrated north to Chicago. My immediate family was one of the few branches that wound up coming west.” Charles’ father was a songwriter and vocalist. “He loves all of the old cats like Nat King Cole, the big bands and the standards of the 1930s and '40s.

Charles started off on clarinet in fourth grade. But the first time he heard an R&B honking tenor sax being played live, “it was love at first sound.” He switched to sax in seventh grade and played with Lloyd Mummert, one of the premier music teachers in Southern California. Charles played in the high school marching band, and gained experience performing at parties. “My first real musical jobs were blues gigs with Freddie Howard, playing straight ahead 12-bar blues all night long - Muddy Waters, Albert King and Howlin’ Wolf.”

After graduating from high school in 1970, Charles moved to San Francisco. He attended City College, San Francisco State and the Dick Grove School of Music where he took courses in arranging and composing. Charles joined David Hardeman’s big band, worked with the Magic Colors Band for a couple years, and freelanced. In the mid-1970s he formed a group called Pizzazz, playing R&B and funk. In 1979, Pizzazz became the Charles Unger Experience.

Charles has spiritual views on music: “I look at music as a catalyst for bringing different people together and breaking down barriers that separate us from our oneness and our humanity. I try to put that into my music as a way of relating that we all share this beautiful planet together and that we are all on the same road, are all the same people, and are all family. If I can break down barriers through music, then I will have fulfilled my destiny.”