** Charlie Hunter Quartet

NATTY DREAD

(Blue Note)

The concept of a jazz version of Bob Marley's Natty Dread deserves four stars for sheer audacity. But as with the other two albums in the "Blue Note Cover Series" (guitarist Fareed Haque doing CSN&Y's Déjà Vu; saxist Everette Harp on Marvin Gaye's What's Going On), concept beats execution. Although it was brave of Hunter to eschew a reggae groove and recast Marley's tunes as funky jazz with plenty of New Orleans seasonings, it's perverse the way he keeps highlighting how much his eight-string guitar can sound like a B-3 organ -- as if becoming the Big John Patton of the guitar meant more to him than unearthing new meanings in reggae. His twin saxes -- Kenny Brooks on tenor, Calder Spanier on alto -- do nothing to improve upon the simple graces of Marley's melodies, meanwhile managing to sound like everybody and nobody on the fusion scene. And maybe drummer Scott Amendola really wants to be the Ziggy Modeliste of jazz. Tune in again when they decide to grow up and sound like themselves -- just some talented Bay Area guys jazzing up the funk without the pretension of a noble concept.

-- Norman Weinstein