T.J. Kirk

T.J. Kirk never secured a lasting place among jazz and fusion ensembles, yet the quartet’s trajectory remained entirely singular. Eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter assembled the project as an offshoot of his primary San Francisco-based group, recruiting the unit to interpret material drawn exclusively from Thelonius Monk, James Brown, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Having launched his own recording career in 1993, Hunter brought drummer Scott Amendola along to complete the lineup alongside conventional six-string players Will Bernard and John Schott. The musicians initially sought the name James T. Kirk but, denied clearance by Gene Roddenberry’s estate, released their 1995 debut under the abbreviated title T.J. Kirk. That recording permitted Hunter to explore funk textures deeper than those of his main ensemble; on his customized Novax instrument he routinely supplied simultaneous bass lines, melodic statements, and keyboard-style layers. Amendola’s forceful drumming in turn freed Bernard and Schott to recast the trio’s signature pieces, among them “Soul Power,” “Bemsha Swing,” and “Serenade to a Cuckoo.”

The 1996 follow-up If Four Was One surpassed its predecessor. The band proved equally adept at replicating Brown’s extended soul excursions—“Get on the Good Foot,” “The Payback”—and rendering Monk and Kirk compositions dance-floor ready—“Damn Right I’m Somebody,” “Ruby, My Dear,” “Four in One.” Hunter, however, continued to redirect his energies elsewhere. After delivering a complete instrumental rendering of Bob Marley’s Natty Dread in 1997—one of his strongest solo statements—T.J. Kirk effectively ceased activity aside from live bootleg tapes. Calder Spanier’s death in an automobile accident later that year, followed by Hunter’s relocation from the Bay Area to New York in 1998, formally dissolved the group. Listeners familiar with the catalog nevertheless regard T.J. Kirk as the preeminent unsanctioned cover band in jazz/fusion history. Concrete confirmation surfaced in 2005 when Rope-A-Dope issued a 1997 concert recording titled Talking Only Makes It Worse.