I recently posted, onto 8tracks.com, a group of eight songs I have sung on, for your possible listening enjoyment, including songs from Spain, Charlie Haden Family & Friends, Esbjörn Svenssön Trio, Soulsavers, Blue Man Group, and Handsome Boy Modeling School.
Showing posts with label jazz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jazz. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Friday, November 20, 2009
Charlie Haden Family & Friends At Walt Disney Hall - The Report
Thanks to everyone for coming to the Charlie Haden Family & Friends show at Walt Disney Hall! It was a lot of fun, and the music was amazing. I loved singing Donovan's "Catch The Wind", its one of my dad's favorite songs and we'd been trying to find an opportunity to play it for some time. All of the musicians sounded so great! Special thanks to Jerry Douglas for his amazing dobro solos on "Spiritual", can't get much more inspired than that!
If you thought the music on stage was good, you should have heard it in the halls backstage before the show. One of my favorite things about playing with this group is hearing the guys (Dan Tyminski, Bryan Sutton, Mark Fain, Jim Mills, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, and Jerry Douglas) jamming impromptu before we hit the stage.
Its always fun to watch my brother-in-law Jack Black ham it up on stage. My sisters, Petra, Rachel, and Tanya, sang in perfect harmony. My dad's wife Ruth Cameron sounded incredible, and my dad, as bandleader and bluegrass diplomat, held down the fort with his full bass notes and entertained and enlightened the audience as always with stories of his bluegrass past and words of inspiration and encouragement.
It was great to see my friend Ravi Coltrane backstage.
Meeting of the violinists: Lindsay Stella & Petra Haden
Spain keyboardist/guitarist Randy Kirk & Spain
guitarist Daniel Brummel made an appearance.
My dad Charlie & I backstage after the show.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Charlie Haden - Rambling Boy Documentary Film Premiere At REDCAT
Last Thursday I went to REDCAT to see the premiere of Charlie Haden - Rambling Boy, the new documentary about my father (Charlie Haden) directed by Reto Caduff.
It was a great movie and the premiere was lots of fun. My dad and Reto did a question and answer session after the film.
I'm not sure when it will have a general release but until then clips from the film can be found here.
It was a great movie and the premiere was lots of fun. My dad and Reto did a question and answer session after the film.
I'm not sure when it will have a general release but until then clips from the film can be found here.
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).
Friday, February 15, 2008
Haden Family Album - From USA Today
Jazz, country stars join Haden's family
Charlie Haden brings together jazz and country for an album due from Decca Records in July. Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby, Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Béla Fleck and others joined the Grammy-winning bassist in January for sessions at Skaggs' studio.
"We did some Stanley Brothers songs, some Carter Family songs, some things I used to do with my family when I was just a little kid," says Haden, who was in a country-gospel group called the Haden Family before becoming a jazz musician. "We did a lot of songs that weren't necessarily country, but it's all about when I was a kid and my family and the people I played music with."
The sessions involved Haden's wife, Ruth; his son, Josh; and triplets Petra, Tanya and Rachel, each of whom has a music career.
"My kids have been involved in music since they were 3 and 4," Haden says. "I really wanted to do a record with all of them, where they could be the Haden Family again."
•Brian Mansfield
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2008-02-14-coming-attractions_N.htm
Charlie Haden brings together jazz and country for an album due from Decca Records in July. Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby, Vince Gill, Pat Metheny, Béla Fleck and others joined the Grammy-winning bassist in January for sessions at Skaggs' studio.
"We did some Stanley Brothers songs, some Carter Family songs, some things I used to do with my family when I was just a little kid," says Haden, who was in a country-gospel group called the Haden Family before becoming a jazz musician. "We did a lot of songs that weren't necessarily country, but it's all about when I was a kid and my family and the people I played music with."
The sessions involved Haden's wife, Ruth; his son, Josh; and triplets Petra, Tanya and Rachel, each of whom has a music career.
"My kids have been involved in music since they were 3 and 4," Haden says. "I really wanted to do a record with all of them, where they could be the Haden Family again."
•Brian Mansfield
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2008-02-14-coming-attractions_N.htm
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