Bulls or Jazz? Reggae or jazz? These are the questions guitarist Charlie Hunter comes across as he compares playing professional basketball to being a professional musician.

“[Being a musician] is a not a good career,” Hunter said from a phone in his New Orleans hotel room. “You can’t be mediocre. It’s like playing in the NBA, except jazz musicians make very little money.”

For a man who loves what he’s doing, Hunter does not speak highly about the music business. “The industry sucks in all the money,” he said. “And when someone is doing well, they are essentially paying for the guys who don’t sell records.”

“Natty Dread,” Hunter’s latest release, is doing well, but because the material is not original, Hunter’s profits are not as good. So why cover an entire record?

“Bob Marley is one of the great songwriters of all time,” Hunter said. “There’s so much to grab onto on this record.”

Hunter is referring to the original “Natty Dread,” an album Bob Marley recorded in 1974, just after his breakup with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. The record is most known for the Marley classic “No Woman No Cry.”

Hunter’s “Natty Dread” is part of Blue Note records’ esteemed “covers” series and fuses traditional jazz, funk, soul, rock and hip-hop with Marley’s original material.

The guitarist, known for his unique eight-string guitar, considered the Beach Boys’ “Smiley Smile” and Curtis Mayfield’s “Super Fly,” among many others, as contenders for the project.

Hunter said he liked “Natty Dread” because the songs have such strong melodies and harmonies. “Every song serves a purpose,” he added. “I really like them all.”

Hunter and his quartet chose to interpret each song differently and went as far as recording a gospel-speed metal version of “Bend Down Low.”

“The hardest part is coming up with a concept — then we execute from there,” Hunter explained. “[‘Bend Down Low’] was the last one we did. I think we just asked ourselves ‘what don’t we have?’ “

The band finished recording over a year ago and has been touring ever since. As a jazz musician, Hunter frequently finds himself traveling back and forth across the country.

“It’s what I have to do — it’s not a matter of getting sick of it,” Hunter said. “The logistics [of touring] is bad, but playing is good.”

Hunter will be returning to the Maintenance Shop, where he has played in support of past records “Bing Bing Bing” and “Ready Set Shango.”

On “Bing Bing Bing,” Hunter pays tribute to another of his favorite song writers, Kurt Cobain, with a jazz cover of “Come As You Are.”

As far as Hunter’s take on the trend of jazz musicians covering rock and reggae artists, he believes it was bound to happen. “People my age grew up to it,” he said.

Hunter will be at the M-Shop Wednesday, along with the local reggae band Medulla Oblongata. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are still available at all TicketMaster outlets at $9, $8 for students. All M-Shop shows are all ages.