Charlie Haden

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Charlie Haden
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Charlie Haden in 1981.
Background information
Birth name Charles Edward Haden
Born (1937-08-06)August 6, 1937
Shenandoah, Iowa, United States
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres Free jazz, mainstream jazz, post-bop, hard bop, folk jazz
Occupation(s) Double bassist, composer, bandleader, educator
Instruments Double bass
Years active 1957–2014
Associated acts Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Hank Jones, Paul Motian, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Alice Coltrane, Jim Hall
Website www.charliehadenmusic.com

Charles Edward "Charlie" Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, pianist Keith Jarrett, his Liberation Music Orchestra, with arrangements by pianist Carla Bley, and his band formed in the 1980s, Quartet West.

Biography

Early life

Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa.[1] His family was exceptionally musical and performed on the radio as the Haden Family, playing country music and American folk songs.[2] Haden made his professional debut as a singer on the Haden Family's radio show when he was just two years old. He continued singing with his family until he was 15 when he contracted a bulbar form of polio affecting his throat and facial muscles.[1] At the age of 14, Haden had become interested in jazz after hearing Charlie Parker and Stan Kenton in concert. Once he recovered from his bout with polio, Haden began in earnest to concentrate on playing the bass. Haden's interest in the instrument was not sparked by jazz bass alone, but also by the harmonies and chords he heard in compositions by Bach.[3] Haden soon set his sights on moving to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz musician, and to save money for the trip, took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee in Springfield, Missouri.

Early career

Haden often said that he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 in search of pianist Hampton Hawes.[4] He turned down a full scholarship at Oberlin College, which did not have an established jazz program at the time, to attend Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles.[5] His first recordings were made that year with Paul Bley, with whom he worked until 1959. He also played with Art Pepper for four weeks in 1957, and with Hampton Hawes, whom he met through his friendship with bassist Red Mitchell, from 1958 to 1959.[2] For a time, he shared an apartment with the bassist Scott LaFaro.

He began recording with Ornette Coleman shortly after, including the seminal The Shape of Jazz to Come.[1] Haden's folk-influenced style complemented the microtonal, Texas blues elements of Coleman. In 1959, the Coleman Quartet moved to New York City and secured a residency at the Five Spot Café.[4] This residency lasted six weeks and represented the beginnings of free, or avant-garde jazz. The Ornette Coleman Quartet played everything by ear, as Haden explained: “At first when we were playing and improvising, we kind of followed the pattern of the song, sometimes. Then, when we got to New York, Ornette wasn’t playing on the song patterns, like the bridge and the interlude and stuff like that. He would just play. And that’s when I started just following him and playing the chord changes that he was playing: on-the-spot new chord structures made up according to how he felt at any given moment.”[5] Haden’s narcotics addiction forced him to leave Coleman’s band in August 1960. He went to rehabilitation in September 1963 at Synanon houses in Santa Monica, California and San Francisco, California. It was at Synanon House that he met his first wife, Ellen. They moved to New York City's upper West Side where their four children were born: Josh first and then his triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya. They separated in 1975 and subsequently divorced.

1964 to 1987

He resumed his career in 1964, working with John Handy and Denny Zeitlin’s trio, and performing with Archie Shepp in California and Europe. He also did freelance work from 1966 to 1967, performing with Henry “Red” Allen, Pee Wee Russell, Attila Zoller, Bobby Timmons, Tony Scott, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. He recorded with Roswell Rudd in 1966, and returned to Ornette Coleman’s group in 1967. This group remained active until the early 1970s. Haden was known for being able to follow the shifting directions and modulations of Coleman’s improvised lines skillfully.[2]

Haden became a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and his 'American Quartet' from 1967 to 1976 with Paul Motian and Dewey Redman.[1] The group also consisted of percussionist Guilherme Franco.[4] He also organized the collective Old and New Dreams, which consisted of Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Ed Blackwell, who were members of Coleman’s band. These musicians believed they understood and could perform Coleman’s improvisational concept, and applied it to their work in this band, continuing to play Coleman’s music in addition to their own original compositions.[6] In 1970 Haden received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Music Composition upon the recommendation of the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein

Haden founded his first band, the Liberation Music Orchestra ("LMO") in the 1970s. Working together with arranger 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. They also quote lines from songs such as “Dixie,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which the LMO intentionally satirized and portrayed ironically.[4] The LMO has had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists, and consisted of twelve members from multicultural backgrounds.[7] Some of the members included Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Vincent Chancey (French horn), Joe Daley (tuba), Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto saxophone), Chris Cheek (tenor saxophone), Curtis Fowlkes (trombone), Steve Cardenas (guitar), and Matt Wilson (drums).[4] Through Bley's arranging, they 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 group won multiple awards in 1970, including France’s Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros, and Japan’s Gold Disc Award from Swing Journal.[6]

In 1971, while on tour with the Ornette Coleman Quartet in Portugal (at the time under a fascist dictatorship), Haden dedicated 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 Lisbon Airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS (the Portuguese secret police). He was only released after Ornette Coleman and others complained to the American cultural attaché, though he was later interviewed by the FBI in the United States about his choice of dedication.[8]

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. Haden’s involvement with the LMO began at the height of the Vietnam War, out of his frustration that so much of the government’s energy was spent on the war (in which there were many fatalities), while so many internal problems in the United States (such as poverty, civil rights, mental illness, drug addiction, and unemployment), were neglected. Haden’s goal was to use the LMO to amplify unheard voices of oppressed people. He wanted to express his solidarity with progressive political movements from around the world by performing music that made a statement about how to initiate and celebrate liberating change. The LMO toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s continuing until today.[7] 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. Haden performed with Carla Bley and the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra through the 1980s and 1990s as well. Following Dream Keeper, LMO released the album Not In Our Name. Unlike the previous albums, the material on Not In Our Name came solely from American composers, and was intended to convey a sense of patriotism towards the United States, while simultaneously stressing the necessity for political reform.[4]

1987-2000

In 1986, Haden formed his Quartet West at the suggestion of his second wife, singer, co-producer and manager, Ruth Cameron. The Quartet originally consisted of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and long-time collaborator, Billy Higgins, on drums. Higgins was later replaced by Larance Marble and, when Marable became too ill to perform, drummer Rodney Green was added to the band. Quartet West's albums feature original compositions as well as music from the American songbook often with lush, string arrangements by Broadbent. Haden was inspired by films of the noir period. Haden’s vision for Quartet West was the beginning of modernism in jazz. Their work combined forties pop ballads and originals by Haden or Alan Broadbent, and they played a noir infused, bop-oriented style. Haden often said the band was inspired by the past but played in the present. One of his compositions, "In The Moment", articulates that very well. The group was together for almost thirty years and was one of the rare groups in jazz that performed together for so long.[4]

A brief collaboration with Joe Henderson and Al Foster showcased Haden's playing in a more hard-driving jazz context.

In 1982, Haden established the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. His program emphasized smaller group performance and the spiritual connection to the creative process. He encouraged students to discover their individual sounds, melodies, and harmonies. Haden was honored by the Los Angeles Jazz Society as “Jazz Educator of the Year” for his educational work in this program.[6] Haden’s students have included the tenor saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, the trumpeter Ralph Alessi, and the bassist Scott Colley.[3]

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 1995, Haden released Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Song with pianist Hank Jones, an album based on traditional spirituals and folk songs. Haden both played on the album and produced it.[9] 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 Haden called "contemporary impressionistic Americana". Haden was awarded his first Grammy award for the album, for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.[10]

In 1997, classical composer Gavyn Bryars wrote an extended adagio for Charlie Haden. Instrumentation included strings, bass clarinet, and percussion. The piece was recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra on the album Farewell to Philosophy, and is a synthesis of jazz and classical chamber music, featuring resonant pizzicato notes and gut strings in imitation of Haden’s bass sound.[6]

2000–death

In 2001, Haden won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz CD for his album Nocturne, which contains boleros from Cuba and Mexico. In 2003 he won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Performance for his album Land of the Sun.[6] Haden reconvened the 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.

In 2008 Haden co-produced, with his wife Ruth Cameron, the album, Rambling Boy, which features several members of his immediate family including Ruth Cameron, his four musician children (Petra, Rachel, Tanya, and Josh Haden), and his son-in-law, Jack Black, along with Béla Fleck, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby, Vince Gill, and some of the top Nashville players.[6] The album harkens back to Haden's days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. The idea came to Haden when his wife Ruth Cameron gathered the Haden family together for his mother's 80th birthday and suggested they all sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room as that was a song everyone knew.[11] Rambling Boy was intended to connect music from his early childhood in the Haden Family band to the new generation of the Haden family as well. The album includes songs made famous by the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, and Hank Williams, in addition to traditional songs and original compositions.

In 2009, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a film about Haden’s life, entitled Rambling Boy. It premiered at Telluride and Vancouver International Film Festivals festivals in 2009. In the summer of 2009, Haden performed with Ornette Coleman at the Meltdown Festival in Southbank, London. He also performed and produced duet recordings with Hank Jones and Kenny Barron, with whom he recorded the album Night and the City. In February 2010, Haden and Hank Jones recorded a companion to Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs called Come Sunday. Jones died three months after the recording of the album.[6] In 2012, Haden was a recipient of the NEA Jazz Masters Award. The award was given to him and four other honorees at Lincoln Center in New York City.[6]

In 2013, Haden received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, Haden was bestowed the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. A posthumous ceremony in his honor took place in January, 2015, in NYC where his wife Ruth was presented with the medal.

Legacy

Spirituality and teaching method

While he did not orient himself with a specific religious orientation, Haden was interested in spirituality, especially in association with music. He felt it was his duty, and the duty of the artist, to bring beauty to the world, to make this world a better place. He encouraged his students to find their own unique musical voice and bring it to their instrument. He also encouraged his students to be in the present moment: “there’s no yesterday or tomorrow, there’s only right now,” he claims.[7] In order to find this state, and ultimately to find one’s spiritual self, Haden urged that one must have humility and respect for beauty; they must be thankful for the ability to make music, and to give back to the world with the music they create. He claimed that music taught him this process of exchange, so he teaches it to his students in return.[7] Music, Haden believed, also teaches incredibly valuable lessons about life: "I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance."[11]

Musical philosophy

Haden also viewed jazz as the "music of rebellion" and felt it was his responsibility and mission to challenge the world through music, and through artistic risks that expressed his own individual artistic vision. He believed that all music originates from the same place, and because of this, he resisted the tendency to divide music into categories. He was democratic in his tastes and musical partners, and interested in musical collaboration with any individual who shares his sensibilities on music and life.[7] His music (specifically the music he created with the LMO), was based on the music of peoples struggling for freedom from oppression. Haden spoke to this in reference to his 2002 album American Dreams, stating: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life—for our children, and for our future.”[4]

Musical style

Haden was known for his warm tone and subtle vibrato on the double bass, in addition to his lyrical playing. His approach to the bass stemmed from his belief that the bassist should move from an accompanying role to a more direct role in group improvisation. This is particularly clear in his work with the Ornette Coleman Quartet; he frequently improvised melodic responses to Coleman’s free-form solos instead of playing previously written lines.[2] He frequently closed his eyes while performing, and assumed a posture in which he bent himself around the bass until his head was almost at the bottom of the bridge of the bass.[7]

Haden owned one three-quarter sized bass, and one seven-eighths sized bass. The larger bass is one of a small number of basses made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a French luthier, in the mid-nineteenth century. He greatly valued this bass, playing it only at recording sessions and jobs in close proximity to his home so as not to damage it in transit. He attributed the bass’s special and valuable nature to the varnish used by Vuillaume, which is similar to Italian varnish.[3]

Haden suffered from tinnitus, a ringing in both ears that he believed he received from constant exposure to playing close to the drums and an extremely loud free jazz concert he played with tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp and trombonist Roswell Rudd in the late 1960s. He also suffered from hyperacousis, or sensitivity to loud noises. As a result, when he played with a drummer, he had to play behind a Plexiglass divider.[3]

Personal life

Haden is survived by his first wife Ellen Haden, with whom he had four children- triplet daughters, Tanya Haden, Rachel Haden and Petra Haden, son Josh Haden, 3 grandchildren. And by his second wife, the singer and former actress, Ruth Cameron whom he met in 1984. They married in NYC in 1989. Ruth managed and co-produced many albums and projects with him throughout their marriage. His son Josh Haden is a bass guitarist and singer of the group Spain. His triplet daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all singers and instrumentalists. Petra plays the violin, Rachel, the piano and bass guitar, Tanya, the cello. The girls have a band called the Haden Triplets. Petra and Rachel were members of That Dog; Petra played with progressive folk group the Decemberists, Rachel played in the rock band The Rentals, and Tanya is also an artist and married to Jack Black.

Haden died in Los Angeles on July 11, 2014, at the age of 76. He had been suffering from effects of post-polio syndrome for a few years prior to his death.[12][13][14] His wife, Ruth, and four children were by his side. A memorial concert was held in New York City's Town Hall on January 13, 2015, organized by Ruth Cameron, where his fellow musicians, agents, and family members remembered his life.[15]

Discography

As leader

File:Charlie Haden.jpg
Haden in Gent, Belgium, 2007

The Montreal Tapes

With the Liberation Music Orchestra

With Old and New Dreams

With Quartet West

As sideman

With Geri Allen and Paul Motian

With Ray Anderson

  • Every One of Us (Gramavision, 1992)

With Ginger Baker and Bill Frisell

  • Going Back Home (Atlantic, 1994)
  • Falling Off the Roof (Atlantic, 1996)

With Gato Barbieri

With Kenny Barron

With Beck

With Carla Bley

With Paul Bley

With Jane Ira Bloom

  • Mighty Lights (Enja, 1982)

With Dušan Bogdanović

  • Early to Rise (Palo Alto, 1983)

With Charles Brackeen

With Michael Brecker

With Gavin Bryars

  • Farewell to Philosophy (Point, 1995)

With Henry Butler

With Ruth Cameron

  • First Songs (Polygram, 1997)
  • Road House (Verve, 1999)

With Don Cherry

With Ornette Coleman

With Alice Coltrane

With John Coltrane

With James Cotton

  • Deep in the Blues (Verve, 1995)

With Robert Downey Jr.

With Dizzy Gillespie

With Jim Hall

  • Charlie Haden Jim Hall (Impulse, 2014) / live in Montreal, July 1990

With Tom Harrell

  • Form (Contemporary, 1990)

With Joe Henderson

  • The Elements (Milestone, 1973)
  • An Evening with Joe Henderson (Red, 1987)
  • The Standard Joe (Red, 1991)

With Fred Hersch

  • Sarabande (Sunnyside, 1986)

With Laurence Hobgood

  • When the Heart Dances (Naim Jazz, 2008)

With Mark Isham

  • Songs My Children Taught Me (Windham Hill, 1991)

With Keith Jarrett

With Rickie Lee Jones

With Lee Konitz and Brad Mehldau

  • Alone Together (Blue Note, 1996)
  • Another Shade of Blue (Blue Note, 1997)
  • Live at Birdland (ECM, 2011) with Paul Motian

With David Liebman

  • Sweet Hands (Horizon, 1975)

With Abbey Lincoln

  • The World Is Falling Down (Verve, 1990)
  • You Gotta Pay the Band (Verve, 1991)
  • A Turtle's Dream (Verve, 1994)

With Joe Lovano

With Michael Mantler

With Adam Makowicz

  • Naughty Baby (RCA Novus, 1987)

With Harvey Mason

  • With All My Heart (RCA, 2004)

With John McLaughlin

With Helen Merrill

With Pat Metheny

With Mingus Dynasty

  • Chair in the Sky (Elektra, 1980)

With Paul Motian

With Bheki Mseleku

  • Star Seeding (Polygram, 1995)

With Yoko Ono

With Joe Pass

  • 12-string Guitar Movie Themes (World Pacific, 1964)

With Art Pepper

  • Living Legend (Contemporary, 1975)
  • So in Love (Artists House, 1979)
  • Art 'n' Zoot with Zoot Sims (Pablo, 1981)

With Enrico Pieranunzi

  • Fellini Jazz (Cam Jazz, 2003)
  • Special Encounter (Cam Jazz, 2005)

With Dewey Redman

With Joshua Redman

  • Wish (Warner, 1993)

With Gonzalo Rubalcaba

  • Discovery - Live at Montreux (Blue Note, 1990)
  • The Blessing (Blue Note, 1991)
  • Suite 4 Y 20 (Blue Note, 1992)
  • Imagine (Blue Note, 1994)

With Roswell Rudd

With Pee Wee Russell and Henry "Red" Allen

With Dino Saluzzi

With David Sanborn

  • Another Hand (Elektra, 1991)

With John Scofield

With Archie Shepp

With Alan Shorter

With Nana Simopoulos

With Wadada Leo Smith

With Ringo Starr

With Masahiko Togashi

  • Session in Paris (Take One, 1979)

With Denny Zeitlin

  • Carnival (Columbia, 1964)
  • Live at the Trident (Columbia, 1965)
  • Zeitgeist (Columbia, 1967)
  • Tidal Wave (Quicksilver, 1983)

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 allmusic Biography
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  8. Jazz Legend Charlie Haden on His Life, His Music and His Politics. Democracy Now. September 01, 2006 Accessed January 5, 2009.
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  12. Peter Hum, "RIP, Charlie Haden", Ottawa Citizen, July 12, 2014.
  13. Marc Myers, "Giving the Bass a Voice", Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2014.
  14. Marc Myers, "Charlie Haden (1937-2014)", JazzWax, July 15, 2014.
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External links