Charlie Haden

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Charlie Haden

Haden in Pescara Italy, 1990
Background information
Birth name Charles Edward Haden
Born August 6, 1937 (1937-08-06) (age 71)
Origin Shenandoah, Iowa, U.S.
Genre(s) Free jazz
Mainstream jazz
Post-bop
Hard bop
Occupation(s) Double bassist
Instrument(s) Double bass
Years active 1957 - present
Associated acts Ornette Coleman, Pat Metheny, Liberation Music Orchestra, Quartet West

Charles Edward Haden (born August 6, 1937)[1] is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Haden is also known for his signature lyrical bass lines and is one of the most respected bassists and jazz composers today.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa, and raised in a musical family, which often performed together on the radio playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer when he was two years old, and continued singing with his family until he contracted a mild form of polio when he was 15.[1] The polio damaged his throat muscles and vocal cords, and as a result, Haden was unable to control his pitch while singing. A few years before contracting polio, Haden had become interested in jazz, and began playing his older brother's double bass. Eventually he set his sights on Los Angeles, and to save money for the trip took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.

Haden moved to LA in 1957, and quickly began playing professionally, including stints with pianist Hampton Hawes and saxophonist Art Pepper. He began playing with Ornette Coleman in the late 1950s, culminating with The Shape of Jazz to Come.[1] This album was released to much controversy at the time, and Haden himself remarked that the harmolodic style of playing was so confusing to him at first that he resigned himself to repeating Coleman's lines on the bass. It was only later that he had enough confidence to start playing his own lines during the performances.

Besides his association with Ornette Coleman, Haden was also a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and "American quartet" from 1967 to 1976 with Paul Motian and Dewey Redman.[1] He played in the collective Old and New Dreams.[1]

He went on to lead the Liberation Music Orchestra in the 1970s. Largely arranged by Carla Bley, their music was very experimental, exploring the realms of free jazz and political music at the same time; the first album focused specifically on the Spanish Civil War. The LMO has had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists. Through Bley's arranging, they have concentrated on a wide palette of brass instruments, including tuba, French horn, and trombone, in addition to the more standard trumpet and reed section. The LMO's 1982 album "The Ballad of the Fallen" commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the political instability and United States involvement in Latin America. In 1990, the orchestra returned with "Dream Keeper," a more heterogeneous album which drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on politics in Latin America and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.

In 1971, while on tour in Portugal, Haden decided to dedicate a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau. The following day, he was detained at the Lisbon airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS (the Portuguese secret police). He was promptly released the same day after the intervention of the American cultural attaché, though he was later interviewed by the FBI in the United States about his choice of dedication.[2]

Haden in Gent, Belgium, 2007

Thematic exploration of genres not typically considered to be jazz standards became one of the signature approaches of the Charlie Haden Quartet West. Started in 1987, the Quartet consists of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and Larance Marable on drums. Quartet West's albums feature lush, romantic arrangements by Broadbent, often with strings, of music from the 1930s and 1940s, often music associated with films of that period.

Haden has also been active over the years working in duets with pianists such as Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, and Denny Zeitlin. He has explored spiritual hymns with Jones, American folk music in American Hymns, and Cuban folk music in Nocturne.

In 1989, Haden was featured at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and performed in concert every night of the festival, with different combos and bands. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series "The Montreal Tapes."

In late 1996, he collaborated with Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in Missouri with what they call "contemporary impressionistic americana."

Haden reconvened Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.

A feature length documentary Charlie Haden is in production.[3]

Haden's most recent release, Rambling Boy, features several members of his immediate family, along with Béla Fleck, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, and others. The album, released on 23 September 2008, harkens back to his days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. A concert tour with Quartet West (with a new drummer) is also scheduled for the late summer.

[edit] Family

His son Josh Haden is a bass guitarist and singer. He recorded with 1980s punk band Trecherous Jaywalkers (who recorded for SST Records), and is presently a member of Spain. His triplet daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all musicians. Formerly of that dog., Petra was a member of progressive folk group The Decemberists, Rachel was a founding member of rock band, The Rentals, and Tanya is married to actor Jack Black.

[edit] Discography

[edit] As sideman

With Ornette Coleman

With Keith Jarrett

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e allmusic Biography
  2. ^ Jazz Legend Charlie Haden on His Life, His Music and His Politics. Democracy Now. September 01, 2006 Accessed January 5, 2009.
  3. ^ IMDB entry for Charlie Haden documentary. Accessed January 5, 2009.

[edit] External links

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