Malcolm R. D. B. Hunter
Malcolm Hunter was born in Queens, NYC, and began playing the piano at 6. His classical training was enhanced by hearing his first Steely Dan record, and he was entranced by the urban sensibility and mix of rock and jazz. He attended Ithaca College on a music scholarship, and performed as a singer/songwriter.
Moving to Brooklyn, he lived the life of a blues poet, writing and exploring the micro prisms of deep urban life and its characters. He performed as Invisible Man, appearing at Greenwich Village piano bars and clubs playing the blues. He became involved in a poetry collective, accompanying various poets with his improvised piano jazz. Eventually, he heard Charles Mingus, and found a kinship with his poetry, and inspiration in his music.
In 2000, he released, "WUNDerground Radio" - a melting pot of styles about a pirate radio station. Centering the disc was Malcolm's send up to Mssrs. Becker & Fagen, in "Like a Steely Dan Movie", which musically story-boarded a hidden, urban nightmare. "Model Prisoner" found him trapped in a loveless jail.
His next record - with a trio - "Tryin' to Sort It All Out" questioned life's ironies while delivering his lyrics and blues with Mose Allison-like charm.
Familiar with life on the margins, he migrated between the flames and shadows of Hell's Kitchen and the remnants of the East Village squatters scene, and wrote "Nostalgia In My Square Head".
An homage to Mingus' "Nostalgia in Times Square", NIMSH is a funky, jazz-gospel record about Hell's Kitchen; a journey through the corners of alleys, crash pads and lost time, and which features the Makeshift Dream Orchestra.
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