For those of you who missed today's episode of the NPR radio program World Cafe, on which Charlie Haden Family & Friends performed songs from their cd "Rambling Boy", and Charlie Haden did an insightful interview with the show's host, David Dye, it can now be listened to online.
Click on "Web-Only Outtake: 'Spiritual' By Charlie Haden Family Band" to hear their version of the song "Spiritual", recorded especially for the show (but not included in the radio version of the show), with yours truly on vocals. This version is particularly stirring and noteworthy (in my humble opinion) because it contains the outstanding tandem violin and fiddle playing of Petra Haden and Stuart Duncan, respectively, which doesn't happen on the cd version. It also features the cello work of Tanya Haden, guitar work by John Leventhal and Mark Fain, mandolin playing by Dan Tyminski, and, of course, bass playing by Charlie Haden.
The group also performs the songs "Oh Take Me Back", "Rambling Boy", and "Ocean Of Diamonds", in addition to the interview with Charlie.
Showing posts with label Tanya Haden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tanya Haden. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Charlie Haden Family And Friends Debut Show
I know I promised to blog every day from NYC during our stay for the Charlie Haden Family & Friends debut performance at Lincoln Center's 25th annual Roots of American Music Festival Aug. 24 but I was so busy it just wasn't possible!
Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Here are some highlights...
The view from Rachel and Atom's hotel room was incredible.
The rehearsal was a lot of fun.
Atom Ellis was in awe.
My dad's wife Ruth Cameron sounded great.
Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park Bandshell provides a stunning foreground to a equally stunning classic New York backdrop.
Guitarist Bryan Sutton and banjoist Jim Mills shared a moment in front of my iPhone camera before soundcheck.
Icons and Fellow L.A.'ers The Knitters played before us and the legendary John Doe posed for a picture with Atom and Rachel.
My dad Charlie confers with Dan Tyminski backstage before soundcheck.
From the first note the Charlie Haden Family & Friends band were tearing up the stage. From left, Bryan Sutton, Dan Tyminski, Jerry Douglas, and Stuart Duncan. Also present were Jim Mills, Sam Bush, and Mark Fain.
My sisters Petra, Rachel, and Tanya took the stage as the sun went down.
Patti Smith and her band headlined the show and even though this isn't a very good picture, they were amazing. It was the first time I'd seen them play, and I was incredibly moved and inspired by their powerful songs and message of peace and call to action in an endearing and totally non-pretentious way. Patti Smith is the real thing.
All in all, playing at the 25th Annual Roots Of American Music Festival at Lincoln Center was a blast. The music was incredible, and it was really great to see the guys in the band again.
Charlie Haden Family & Friends debut cd "Ramblin' Boy" will be released Sept. 24 on Decca Records. If you'd like to read my previous posts about the recording sessions check out here, here, here, here, and here!
Anyways, it was a lot of fun. Here are some highlights...
The view from Rachel and Atom's hotel room was incredible.
The rehearsal was a lot of fun.
Atom Ellis was in awe.
My dad's wife Ruth Cameron sounded great.
Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park Bandshell provides a stunning foreground to a equally stunning classic New York backdrop.
Guitarist Bryan Sutton and banjoist Jim Mills shared a moment in front of my iPhone camera before soundcheck.
Icons and Fellow L.A.'ers The Knitters played before us and the legendary John Doe posed for a picture with Atom and Rachel.
My dad Charlie confers with Dan Tyminski backstage before soundcheck.
From the first note the Charlie Haden Family & Friends band were tearing up the stage. From left, Bryan Sutton, Dan Tyminski, Jerry Douglas, and Stuart Duncan. Also present were Jim Mills, Sam Bush, and Mark Fain.
My sisters Petra, Rachel, and Tanya took the stage as the sun went down.
Patti Smith and her band headlined the show and even though this isn't a very good picture, they were amazing. It was the first time I'd seen them play, and I was incredibly moved and inspired by their powerful songs and message of peace and call to action in an endearing and totally non-pretentious way. Patti Smith is the real thing.
All in all, playing at the 25th Annual Roots Of American Music Festival at Lincoln Center was a blast. The music was incredible, and it was really great to see the guys in the band again.
Charlie Haden Family & Friends debut cd "Ramblin' Boy" will be released Sept. 24 on Decca Records. If you'd like to read my previous posts about the recording sessions check out here, here, here, here, and here!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bringing it all back home
Charlie Haden returns to his country roots—and takes his family with him.
By Jay Ruttenberg
Time Out New York
Aug. 20 - 26, 2008
In January, an unlikely swarm gathered in a Nashville studio to record songs steeped in rural American music. The session was spearheaded by jazz-bass titan Charlie Haden and singer Ruth Cameron, Haden’s wife of two decades. Featured artists included the bassist’s grown children—Josh, singer in the band Spain, and harmonizing triplets Petra, Rachel and Tanya—plus Tanya’s husband, Jack Black, a movie star with an oddly commanding voice. Invited guests included luminaries of bluegrass (Dan Tyminski), jazz (Pat Metheny), country (Vince Gill) and the worlds between (Elvis Costello).
The resulting album, Charlie Haden Family & Friends’ Rambling Boy—due next month on Decca, but showcased live at Lincoln Center this week—underlines the musical breadth of its ringleader. “The hinge of the record is my dad’s past and all the different styles he’s been involved with,” Josh Haden says. “It’s like an overview of his entire life, starting from when he was one year old.”
The younger Haden isn’t exaggerating. Long before he helped Ornette Coleman redefine jazz’s boundaries, the bassist sang with his parents and siblings on a daily radio program in Missouri. Haden, now 71, joined the family act back in an old America that was unimpeded by such dreary niceties as child-labor laws. “I remember my mom rocking me to sleep,” recalls Haden, speaking from L.A. before heading to his son-in-law’s Tropic Thunder premiere. “I wasn’t even two. She was humming, and I started humming the harmony. She said, ‘You’re ready for the radio show, babe.’ They started taking me to the station every morning. My mom would pick me up in her arms and hold me to the microphone so I could sing.”
In an archival recording appended to Rambling Boy, the future Liberation Music Orchestra leader can be heard as a toddler, introduced on the show as “the little two-year-old yodelin’ cowboy.” (Frankly, Haden’s work on The Shape of Jazz to Come is more impressive.) The budding musician worked on the radio until he was 15, coming of age surrounded by tall-tale heroes of American country. “My dad knew Jimmie Rodgers, the Carters and [Hank] Williams,” Haden says. “All the people in Nashville used to guest-star on the show. Mother Maybelle would come sing at our house.”
When Haden’s yodelin’ voice fell victim to polio, he shifted his focus to bass, which he decided was “the most beautiful instrument of all, because it made everything sound better when it was playing.” (Also: He harbored a childhood crush on the Carter Sisters’ bassist.) He heard Charlie Parker, grew smitten with jazz, moved to L.A. and became famous. But Haden never forsook his roots. “Most jazz musicians are born in big cities,” he notes. “I’m glad I was born in the Ozarks and exposed to country music. It left a deep impression in my soul. It’s in everything I do.”
While Haden never put his own children on the radio, he still fostered an intensely musical household. Josh Haden grew up to be a singer-songwriter—his work has been covered by Johnny Cash—and the triplets have played with a veritable who’s who of contemporary rock. Rambling Boy presents a lovely family portrait, with support from some of Nashville’s most accomplished hands. Though steeped in tradition, the recording sounds modern and, with its jazz undertone, somewhat eccentric. “Charlie drew from his country roots here,” says bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs, who appears on the record. “But on the song ‘20/20 Vision,’ Bruce Hornsby suggested that he play his jazz licks. It really showed Charlie’s ability to walk from country to jazz.”
To Haden, mingling those genres is a given: They are, after all, “the indigenous forms of American music.” Appropriately, the Haden Family’s debut performance, on Sunday 24, marks the 25th anniversary of Lincoln Center’s Roots of American Music series. Flanked on the bill by Patti Smith and the Knitters, the Hadens and their Nashville brethren have given Lincoln Center curators Spike Barkin and Bill Bragin what Bragin deems “the perfect anchor. There’s something about family harmonies and communication that really connects this to traditional music.”
Yet for Cameron, Haden’s manager as well as his wife, the album proved something of a break from tradition. “Through years of recording, it’s always ‘Charlie this, Charlie that,’ ” she says. “Then all of a sudden, the girls were singing and we heard from the council room, ‘Daa-aad! Daa-aad!’ In three-part harmony, of course.”
Charlie Haden Family & Friends play Damrosch Park Sun 24.
By Jay Ruttenberg
Time Out New York
Aug. 20 - 26, 2008
In January, an unlikely swarm gathered in a Nashville studio to record songs steeped in rural American music. The session was spearheaded by jazz-bass titan Charlie Haden and singer Ruth Cameron, Haden’s wife of two decades. Featured artists included the bassist’s grown children—Josh, singer in the band Spain, and harmonizing triplets Petra, Rachel and Tanya—plus Tanya’s husband, Jack Black, a movie star with an oddly commanding voice. Invited guests included luminaries of bluegrass (Dan Tyminski), jazz (Pat Metheny), country (Vince Gill) and the worlds between (Elvis Costello).
The resulting album, Charlie Haden Family & Friends’ Rambling Boy—due next month on Decca, but showcased live at Lincoln Center this week—underlines the musical breadth of its ringleader. “The hinge of the record is my dad’s past and all the different styles he’s been involved with,” Josh Haden says. “It’s like an overview of his entire life, starting from when he was one year old.”
The younger Haden isn’t exaggerating. Long before he helped Ornette Coleman redefine jazz’s boundaries, the bassist sang with his parents and siblings on a daily radio program in Missouri. Haden, now 71, joined the family act back in an old America that was unimpeded by such dreary niceties as child-labor laws. “I remember my mom rocking me to sleep,” recalls Haden, speaking from L.A. before heading to his son-in-law’s Tropic Thunder premiere. “I wasn’t even two. She was humming, and I started humming the harmony. She said, ‘You’re ready for the radio show, babe.’ They started taking me to the station every morning. My mom would pick me up in her arms and hold me to the microphone so I could sing.”
In an archival recording appended to Rambling Boy, the future Liberation Music Orchestra leader can be heard as a toddler, introduced on the show as “the little two-year-old yodelin’ cowboy.” (Frankly, Haden’s work on The Shape of Jazz to Come is more impressive.) The budding musician worked on the radio until he was 15, coming of age surrounded by tall-tale heroes of American country. “My dad knew Jimmie Rodgers, the Carters and [Hank] Williams,” Haden says. “All the people in Nashville used to guest-star on the show. Mother Maybelle would come sing at our house.”
When Haden’s yodelin’ voice fell victim to polio, he shifted his focus to bass, which he decided was “the most beautiful instrument of all, because it made everything sound better when it was playing.” (Also: He harbored a childhood crush on the Carter Sisters’ bassist.) He heard Charlie Parker, grew smitten with jazz, moved to L.A. and became famous. But Haden never forsook his roots. “Most jazz musicians are born in big cities,” he notes. “I’m glad I was born in the Ozarks and exposed to country music. It left a deep impression in my soul. It’s in everything I do.”
While Haden never put his own children on the radio, he still fostered an intensely musical household. Josh Haden grew up to be a singer-songwriter—his work has been covered by Johnny Cash—and the triplets have played with a veritable who’s who of contemporary rock. Rambling Boy presents a lovely family portrait, with support from some of Nashville’s most accomplished hands. Though steeped in tradition, the recording sounds modern and, with its jazz undertone, somewhat eccentric. “Charlie drew from his country roots here,” says bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs, who appears on the record. “But on the song ‘20/20 Vision,’ Bruce Hornsby suggested that he play his jazz licks. It really showed Charlie’s ability to walk from country to jazz.”
To Haden, mingling those genres is a given: They are, after all, “the indigenous forms of American music.” Appropriately, the Haden Family’s debut performance, on Sunday 24, marks the 25th anniversary of Lincoln Center’s Roots of American Music series. Flanked on the bill by Patti Smith and the Knitters, the Hadens and their Nashville brethren have given Lincoln Center curators Spike Barkin and Bill Bragin what Bragin deems “the perfect anchor. There’s something about family harmonies and communication that really connects this to traditional music.”
Yet for Cameron, Haden’s manager as well as his wife, the album proved something of a break from tradition. “Through years of recording, it’s always ‘Charlie this, Charlie that,’ ” she says. “Then all of a sudden, the girls were singing and we heard from the council room, ‘Daa-aad! Daa-aad!’ In three-part harmony, of course.”
Charlie Haden Family & Friends play Damrosch Park Sun 24.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Charlie Haden Family And Friends At Lincoln Center Aug. 24 2008
Charlie Haden Family & Friends will be playing their debut performance this Sunday, Aug. 24 2008 at Lincoln Center in NYC as part of the 25th annual Roots Of American Music Festival.
This show is in anticipation of the debut Charlie Haden Family & Friends album recorded in Nashville to be released September 23 on Decca Records. The songs include a mix of classic country and bluegrass with gospel, folk, and jazz. In addition to Charlie and his wife Ruth, kids Josh, Rachel, Petra, and Tanya, artists appearing on the album include Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby, Bela Fleck, Jack Black, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Dan Tyminski, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, and others.
I'll be there singing my song "Spiritual". My dad Charlie will be playing bass and his wife Ruth will be singing, my sisters Rachel, Petra, and Tanya will be singing great harmonies, and the core group of Dan Tyminski, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Bryan Sutton will be playing as well. I'm not sure, but I think there'll be surprise guests also. I wonder who they'll be? Hmmm....
I'll be blogging from NYC the entire time, check here for updates.
I understand more gigs in the States and Europe are being planned, if you're not in the New York area stay tuned!
Charlie Haden Family & Friends
New York City
Lincoln Center Out Of Doors/Roots Of American Music Festival
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Sunday, August 24 - 7pm
Free
P.S. the festival headliner is Patti Smith! Whoa!! Also, the Knitters will be playing too!
This show is in anticipation of the debut Charlie Haden Family & Friends album recorded in Nashville to be released September 23 on Decca Records. The songs include a mix of classic country and bluegrass with gospel, folk, and jazz. In addition to Charlie and his wife Ruth, kids Josh, Rachel, Petra, and Tanya, artists appearing on the album include Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Bruce Hornsby, Bela Fleck, Jack Black, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Dan Tyminski, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, and others.
I'll be there singing my song "Spiritual". My dad Charlie will be playing bass and his wife Ruth will be singing, my sisters Rachel, Petra, and Tanya will be singing great harmonies, and the core group of Dan Tyminski, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Bryan Sutton will be playing as well. I'm not sure, but I think there'll be surprise guests also. I wonder who they'll be? Hmmm....
I'll be blogging from NYC the entire time, check here for updates.
I understand more gigs in the States and Europe are being planned, if you're not in the New York area stay tuned!
Charlie Haden Family & Friends
New York City
Lincoln Center Out Of Doors/Roots Of American Music Festival
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Sunday, August 24 - 7pm
Free
P.S. the festival headliner is Patti Smith! Whoa!! Also, the Knitters will be playing too!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Charlie Haden Family And Friends - First Ever Live Performance!
New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) - Charlie Haden Family and Friends will make their live debut at Lincoln Center's 25th Annual Roots of American Music Festival on Sunday, August 24th. Performing will be legendary bassist Charlie Haden, his wife, Ruth Cameron, his children Josh, Petra, Rachel, and Tanya - all of whom are established musicians in their own right - as well as a Nashville dream band made up of Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, and Dan Tyminski.
The performance celebrates the release of 'Rambling Boy' (due out September 23 via Decca Records), an intriguing album of mostly traditional songs Charlie Haden learned as a young child while performing with his own siblings and parents as part of the Haden Family band in the 1930s.
Charlie's friends making an appearance on the album include such luminaries as Vince Gill, Bruce Hornsby, Ricky Skaggs, Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, his long-time collaborator Pat Metheny, and many more. Audiences can expect the same kind of stirring, emotional performances featured on the record. Haden's triplet daughters sing tight, heartbreaking harmonies. His son Josh and his wife Ruth both lend their bold and clear voices to several songs. Then there's Dad, Charlie Haden, whose musicianship is unmatched.
Charlie Haden Family and Friends will be appearing at the Roots of American Music Festival alongside some other very impressive artists. Other acts on the bill include the Music Makers Blues Revue, The Knitters, and Patti Smith and her band.
For more information, please visit: http://www.lincolncenter.org/show_events_list.asp?eventcode=-62548
WHO: Charlie Haden Family and Friends
WHAT: Live debut
WHERE: Damrosch Park Bandshell
Damrosch Park
Amsterdam Ave & West 62nd Street
WHEN: Sunday, August 24th - 4 PM - FREE
The performance celebrates the release of 'Rambling Boy' (due out September 23 via Decca Records), an intriguing album of mostly traditional songs Charlie Haden learned as a young child while performing with his own siblings and parents as part of the Haden Family band in the 1930s.
Charlie's friends making an appearance on the album include such luminaries as Vince Gill, Bruce Hornsby, Ricky Skaggs, Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, his long-time collaborator Pat Metheny, and many more. Audiences can expect the same kind of stirring, emotional performances featured on the record. Haden's triplet daughters sing tight, heartbreaking harmonies. His son Josh and his wife Ruth both lend their bold and clear voices to several songs. Then there's Dad, Charlie Haden, whose musicianship is unmatched.
Charlie Haden Family and Friends will be appearing at the Roots of American Music Festival alongside some other very impressive artists. Other acts on the bill include the Music Makers Blues Revue, The Knitters, and Patti Smith and her band.
For more information, please visit: http://www.lincolncenter.org/show_events_list.asp?eventcode=-62548
WHO: Charlie Haden Family and Friends
WHAT: Live debut
WHERE: Damrosch Park Bandshell
Damrosch Park
Amsterdam Ave & West 62nd Street
WHEN: Sunday, August 24th - 4 PM - FREE
Friday, June 20, 2008
Charlie Haden still keeps it in the family
Charlie Haden still keeps it in the family
By Ken Eisner
straight.com
Life is full of many odd circles and repetitions, but it's a rare person who starts performing in a family country band at only 22 months old and then sails past his 70th year heading his own brood of blood-related musicians. That, however, is exactly what jazz veteran Charlie Haden now finds himself undertaking.
After moving to Los Angeles in the 1950s, the Iowa-born Haden lent his probing bass lines to some of the most outré saxophone players the jazz world has ever known (Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, and Dewey Redman among them), as well as performing with idiosyncratic solo artists like Keith Jarrett, Carla Bley, and Yoko Ono. Over the years, Haden has also made his deep affection for rural folk music come alive, most notably in collaboration with fellow midwesterner Pat Metheny in 1997's Beyond the Missouri Sky.
When the Georgia Straight catches up with him, he is putting the last touches on a new album to be called Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Ocean of Diamonds. The record features the bassist-composer with his wife, singer (and producer) Ruth Cameron, son Josh Haden, and triplet daughters Petra, Rachel, and Tanya. (The last named is better known to some for having married Jack Black.) Other performers onboard include Metheny, Vince Gill, Béla Fleck, Rosanne Cash, and Elvis Costello.
"We've been talking about this ever since Pat and I did Missouri Sky and we went to visit my mom in the Ozarks and everybody sang for her 80th birthday," Haden says, reached at his L.A. home.
That was more than a decade ago, and the veteran musician is talking today because he's about to launch another tour with a different favourite entity, Charlie Haden's Quartet West. Now into its third decade, the foursome—with fellow Californian Ernie Watts on saxophone, New Zealand–born pianist Alan Broadbent, and new drummer Rodney Green—does have some connections with Haden's interest in Americana.
At its upcoming Vancouver International Jazz Festival show, Quartet West will play a blend of jazz ballads and obscure songs associated with old Hollywood and film noir in particular, as heard in a best-of album recently released on Verve. Using sampled snippets of dialogue, orchestral soundtracks, and the occasional Billie Holiday vocal, the group is known for its hushed sense of reverie, nostalgia, and surprise.
"You'll definitely get all that," Haden says. "We play music from an era when what was on the radio went a little bit deeper. I keep discovering and rediscovering things through whatever projects I'm working on. I love finding out more about the music that comes from America. The inspiration for Quartet West came from the beauty of our culture in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. But we don't just do older material. In Vancouver, we'll be playing new tunes of mine, and by Ornette Coleman and others."
After his Quartet West tour, Haden has some family-band dates, including a big August show at New York's Lincoln Centre—the culmination, perhaps, of a documentary on his life that's being filmed for Swiss television. Mostly though, he's still about the music.
"I've always been interested in all kinds of music and all kinds of musicians, ever since I was a kid," says the bassist. "My main goal has been to meet people who were on the same track—which is playin' music to help make the planet a better place."
To that end, Haden has had several runs at holding together—with pianist-arranger Bley—the Liberation Music Orchestra, a large group devoted to political provocation. (The LMO's most recent release, Not in Our Name, came out in 2005.)
"That group's about a lot of things. But mainly it's about wanting the governments of the world to appreciate life. We're playing at the Blue Note the week of the [U.S. presidential] election, so let's hope that has some small effect," he adds with a chuckle. "We're starting to have some expectations of change now, and that came into being because of the cruelty and greed of the government that came into power. Most people have finally opened their eyes to what has been going on; Pat wrote a song for the new record [Ocean of Diamonds] called ‘Katrina, 2005: Is This America?' Now these guys are in their anterooms, counting all the money they've stolen in the past eight years, and it's really sad that they won't be held accountable for their crimes."
If the bassist feels some glimmer of hope regarding U.S. politics, he still worries about the state of popular music in general.
"It's always been about good ears," he says. "If people are born with good ears, they can appreciate good music of all types. And people who weren't at least have the possibility of educating their ears. As it is now, the culture is in really deep trouble, musically. Of course, it's hard to know what people are listening to, with everyone walking around with iPod buds in their ears. I'd like to think they are into things that express deeper values, but how can you know when everyone is so isolated?"
In contrast, Haden just keeps getting more connected with his growing community of musical colleagues, and with the prairie populism that inspired him as a child.
"There's a kind of progressive innovation that comes from this country and keeps popping up," he notes. "When it happens, it can be very timely. But at its best, it's also timeless."
Charlie Haden's Quartet West plays the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on Saturday (June 21).
By Ken Eisner
straight.com
Life is full of many odd circles and repetitions, but it's a rare person who starts performing in a family country band at only 22 months old and then sails past his 70th year heading his own brood of blood-related musicians. That, however, is exactly what jazz veteran Charlie Haden now finds himself undertaking.
After moving to Los Angeles in the 1950s, the Iowa-born Haden lent his probing bass lines to some of the most outré saxophone players the jazz world has ever known (Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, and Dewey Redman among them), as well as performing with idiosyncratic solo artists like Keith Jarrett, Carla Bley, and Yoko Ono. Over the years, Haden has also made his deep affection for rural folk music come alive, most notably in collaboration with fellow midwesterner Pat Metheny in 1997's Beyond the Missouri Sky.
When the Georgia Straight catches up with him, he is putting the last touches on a new album to be called Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Ocean of Diamonds. The record features the bassist-composer with his wife, singer (and producer) Ruth Cameron, son Josh Haden, and triplet daughters Petra, Rachel, and Tanya. (The last named is better known to some for having married Jack Black.) Other performers onboard include Metheny, Vince Gill, Béla Fleck, Rosanne Cash, and Elvis Costello.
"We've been talking about this ever since Pat and I did Missouri Sky and we went to visit my mom in the Ozarks and everybody sang for her 80th birthday," Haden says, reached at his L.A. home.
That was more than a decade ago, and the veteran musician is talking today because he's about to launch another tour with a different favourite entity, Charlie Haden's Quartet West. Now into its third decade, the foursome—with fellow Californian Ernie Watts on saxophone, New Zealand–born pianist Alan Broadbent, and new drummer Rodney Green—does have some connections with Haden's interest in Americana.
At its upcoming Vancouver International Jazz Festival show, Quartet West will play a blend of jazz ballads and obscure songs associated with old Hollywood and film noir in particular, as heard in a best-of album recently released on Verve. Using sampled snippets of dialogue, orchestral soundtracks, and the occasional Billie Holiday vocal, the group is known for its hushed sense of reverie, nostalgia, and surprise.
"You'll definitely get all that," Haden says. "We play music from an era when what was on the radio went a little bit deeper. I keep discovering and rediscovering things through whatever projects I'm working on. I love finding out more about the music that comes from America. The inspiration for Quartet West came from the beauty of our culture in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. But we don't just do older material. In Vancouver, we'll be playing new tunes of mine, and by Ornette Coleman and others."
After his Quartet West tour, Haden has some family-band dates, including a big August show at New York's Lincoln Centre—the culmination, perhaps, of a documentary on his life that's being filmed for Swiss television. Mostly though, he's still about the music.
"I've always been interested in all kinds of music and all kinds of musicians, ever since I was a kid," says the bassist. "My main goal has been to meet people who were on the same track—which is playin' music to help make the planet a better place."
To that end, Haden has had several runs at holding together—with pianist-arranger Bley—the Liberation Music Orchestra, a large group devoted to political provocation. (The LMO's most recent release, Not in Our Name, came out in 2005.)
"That group's about a lot of things. But mainly it's about wanting the governments of the world to appreciate life. We're playing at the Blue Note the week of the [U.S. presidential] election, so let's hope that has some small effect," he adds with a chuckle. "We're starting to have some expectations of change now, and that came into being because of the cruelty and greed of the government that came into power. Most people have finally opened their eyes to what has been going on; Pat wrote a song for the new record [Ocean of Diamonds] called ‘Katrina, 2005: Is This America?' Now these guys are in their anterooms, counting all the money they've stolen in the past eight years, and it's really sad that they won't be held accountable for their crimes."
If the bassist feels some glimmer of hope regarding U.S. politics, he still worries about the state of popular music in general.
"It's always been about good ears," he says. "If people are born with good ears, they can appreciate good music of all types. And people who weren't at least have the possibility of educating their ears. As it is now, the culture is in really deep trouble, musically. Of course, it's hard to know what people are listening to, with everyone walking around with iPod buds in their ears. I'd like to think they are into things that express deeper values, but how can you know when everyone is so isolated?"
In contrast, Haden just keeps getting more connected with his growing community of musical colleagues, and with the prairie populism that inspired him as a child.
"There's a kind of progressive innovation that comes from this country and keeps popping up," he notes. "When it happens, it can be very timely. But at its best, it's also timeless."
Charlie Haden's Quartet West plays the Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts on Saturday (June 21).
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