I never wanted a blog. I resisted having a blog. The only thing I hated more than that invented word, blog, was its bastard form as a verb.
And then I found myself doing that, blogging.
When Artinfo.com asked me to create a jazz blog in 2012 I said yes. I knew my stuff—about jazz and culture, about New York and New Orleans, about ideas beyond those categories and places—would get read by folks outside my usual music-world echo chamber, owing to Blouin Media’s broad international reach and visual-arts focus. Plus, the site looks terrific. The things that I couldn’t fit into The Wall Street Journal, of which there were many, spilled into “Blu Notes.”
Still, I really never wanted to blog.
And until the blog disappeared in late October—a problem since resolved by Artinfo’s tech gurus—I didn’t think I’d miss it.
For month or so, I felt like I’d evaporated from the digital sphere. The distressing “page not found” message made it seem as if I’d been ripped out of a binding or blown away by a stiff wind.
Bassist Charlie Haden and pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba performing in duet at the Blue Note Tokyo, in 2005. Photo courtesy of Universal Music.
Bassist Charlie Haden, who died a little more than a year ago, was a towering American musician and a powerful force in jazz history.
His best qualities—compassion, nuance, a love of melody, an unfailing sense of rhythm, a searching mind and a caring heart—were most clearly evident in his work in duets.
There was the last release before his death, the glorious “Last Dance,” with Keith Jarrett, drawn from the same 2007 sessions as the previous “Jasmine,” likely Haden’s last studio session. There were other duet classics, among them: “Soapsuds, Soapsuds,” with Ornette Coleman; “Steal Away,” with Hank Jones; “Night & the City,” with Kenny Barron; and “As Long As There’s Music,” with Hampton Hawes, who was among the first jazz musicians Haden connected with upon relocating to Los Angeles in the 1950s.
Now comes “Tokyo Adagio” (Impulse!/Universal Music Classics), a stunning recording that captures the magic between Haden and Rubalcaba, as recorded over several evenings in the spring of 2005 at the Blue Note Tokyo. Continue reading “Charlie Haden, Master of Duets, With A Beloved Musical Partner, Gonzalo Rubalcaba”
Carla Bley (at piano) led The Liberation Music Orchestra to end a memorial concert for its founder, bassist Charlie Haden/photo: Jacob Blickenstaff
Minutes into Tuesday night’s memorial concert for Charlie Haden at Manhattan’s Town Hall, on a screen above the stage, came the first of several excerpts from a documentary, “Rambling Boy,” that punctuated three-plus hours of music and testimonials. Here was Haden as a boy, no more than two or three, singing and yodeling with confident joy.
Long before Haden helped ignite a jazz revolution while in his early twenties, as bassist in saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s quartet; before he spent a decade in another landmark band led by pianist Keith Jarrett; before he formed his Liberation Music Orchestra, blending avant-garde, big-band jazz and Latin American folk traditions with bold political statements; before his Quartet West, which played noir ballads inspired by Raymond Chandler novels and movie themes; before memorable duet recordings of spirituals and hymns, and decades of collaborations with musicians that spanned three generations of jazz’s finest players and nearly all its idioms, Haden was “Cowboy Charlie,” a precocious toddler singing his way into listeners hearts on his parents’ radio show.
The evening’s performances, mostly of Haden’s compositions, made a case for his body of work as one that will endure and deserves further interpretation. The spoken testimonials, along with the documentary clips, more or less traced the path and framed the influence of one remarkable musician. Yet what came across most powerfully was how Haden, through his music, presence, and personality, built bonds that seemed familial and coursed through actual families. And we received one after another example, through music and words, of how Haden led others to reveal themselves in moving and even brave ways. Get my full story here, along with a slideshow of images. Siblings Petra, Rachel, Josh, and Tanya Haden, accompanied by guitarist Bill Frisell, singing “Voice From on High” / Credit Jacob Blickenstaff
Bassist Charlie Haden in 2010/photo by Steven Perilloux
Below this post is a list of musicians and others who made a mark in jazz or blues, and who died in 2014, as forwarded by radio host George Klein.
I’ve posted at length on some of these deaths (Roy Campbell, Amiri Baraka, Fred Ho).
The one that hit me hardest was Charlie Haden. As I wrote here:
In conversation as on the bandstand, where he played his bass with graceful authority and achieved great renown, Charlie Haden was both soft-spoken and outspoken. In his life and his music, he was exceedingly gentle, drawn to simple beauty yet also at home within wild complexity and unafraid of controversial ideas and hard truths.
Haden was a towering figure of American music. His influence and appeal reached into all quarters of jazz, and well beyond that genre. His ability to innovate helped sparked at least one musical revolution, as a member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet. His unerring sense of time and love of melody anchored and focused many distinguished bands, some of which he led. His radiant humanity and stalwart voice for social justice was both rare and powerful in any field.
Those who doubt that jazz still has a community, one that shares a singular bond and a common purpose, don’t grasp the essence of Haden’s career and probably never attended a memorial for a fallen jazz hero.
I’ll be there—and you should be too—when musicians, other colleagues and fans gather in Haden’s honor in Manhattan for a memorial organized by his widow, singer Ruth Cameron Haden.
THIS EVENT IS FREE! General Admission. Doors open at 6 pm.
Tax deductible donations to benefit the Charlie Haden CalArts Scholarship Fund to assist jazz students in need can be made at the venue or sent to: P.O. Box 520, Agoura Hills, CA 91376.
Among the many scheduled performers: Geri Allen, Kenny Barron, Carla Bley, Jack DeJohnette, Denardo Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Bill Frisell, Ethan Iverson, Josh Haden and the Haden Triplets, Ruth Cameron-Haden, Dr, Maurice Jackson, Lee Konitz, Pat Metheny, Josh Redman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Brandee Younger, as well as Quartet West with Alan Broadbent, Ernie Watts, Rodney Green, with Scott Colley on bass, and Liberation Music Orchestra with Carla Bley, Tony Malaby, Chris Cheek, Loren Stillman, Michael Rodriguez, Seneca Black, Curtis Fowlkes, Vincent Chancey, Joe Daley, Steve Cardenas, Matt Wilson, with Steve Swallow on bass.
What follows is Klein’s roll call (annotations are his). I welcome your additions for overlooked names. And I hope to see you at Town Hall. Continue reading “Stars Will Come Out And Friends Will Gather to Remember Charlie Haden on Jan. 13”
Bassist Charlie Haden in 2010/photo by Steven Perilloux
In conversation as on the bandstand, where he played his bass with graceful authority and achieved great renown, Charlie Haden was both soft-spoken and outspoken. In his life and his music, he was exceedingly gentle, drawn to simple beauty yet also at home within wild complexity and unafraid of controversial ideas and hard truths.
Haden, who died on Friday morning at 76, was a towering figure of American music. His influence and appeal reached into all quarters of jazz, and well beyond that genre. His ability to innovate helped sparked at least one musical revolution, as a member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet. His unerring sense of time and love of melody anchored and focused many distinguished bands, some of which he led. His radiant humanity and stalwart voice for social justice was both rare and powerful in any field.
His death was confirmed by Ruth Cameron, his wife of 30 years. For the last several years he had been struggling with the degenerative effects of post-polio syndrome, related to the polio he contracted in his youth.
Charles Edward Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa, on Aug. 6, 1937 into a distinctly musical family, and grew up in Springfield, Mo. Long before he helped seed what is known as “free jazz” while in his early twenties as a member of Coleman’s group, along with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins, before he spent a decade in another landmark quartet led by pianist Keith Jarrett, alongside saxophonist Dewey Redman and drummer Paul Motian, before he formed his Liberation Music Orchestra, which blended avant-garde, big-band jazz, Latin American folk traditions with bold political statements, and showcased the compositions and arrangements of pianist Carla Bley, before his Quartet West, which played noir ballads inspired by Raymond Chandler novels and movie themes, before he worked with nearly any musician one could name on jazz’s radar and good many off that screen too, he was known as “Cowboy Charlie,” singing his way into listeners hearts at the tender age of two on his parents’ country-music radio show, “Uncle Carl Haden and the Haden Family.” Continue reading “Speaking Truth to Power, and Embracing Beauty: Bassist Charlie Haden (1937-2014)”
I never wanted a blog. I resisted having a blog. The only thing I hated more than that invented word, blog, was its bastard form as a verb.
