{"id":5424,"date":"2015-09-19T19:32:35","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T19:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5424"},"modified":"2015-09-19T19:32:35","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T19:32:35","slug":"charlie-haden-master-of-duets-with-a-beloved-musical-partner-gonzalo-rubalcaba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/19\/charlie-haden-master-of-duets-with-a-beloved-musical-partner-gonzalo-rubalcaba\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Haden, Master of Duets, With A Beloved Musical Partner, Gonzalo Rubalcaba"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bassist<\/a>
Bassist Charlie Haden and pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba performing in duet at the Blue Note Tokyo, in 2005. Photo courtesy of Universal Music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBassist Charlie Haden, who died a little more than a year ago, was a towering American musician and a powerful force in jazz history.
\nHis best qualities\u2014compassion, nuance, a love of melody, an unfailing sense of rhythm, a searching mind and a caring heart\u2014were most clearly evident in his work in duets.
\nThere was the last release before his death, the glorious \u201cLast Dance,\u201d with Keith Jarrett, drawn from the same 2007 sessions as the previous \u201cJasmine,\u201d likely Haden\u2019s last studio session. There were other duet classics, among them: \u201cSoapsuds, Soapsuds,\u201d with Ornette Coleman; \u201cSteal Away,\u201d with Hank Jones; \u201cNight & the City,\u201d with Kenny Barron; and \u201cAs Long As There\u2019s Music,\u201d with Hampton Hawes, who was among the first jazz musicians Haden connected with upon relocating to Los Angeles in the 1950s.
\nNow comes \u201cTokyo Adagio\u201d (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.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll never forget a two-week run at Manhattan\u2019s Blue Note jazz club to celebrate Haden\u2019s 65th<\/sup> birthday, in 2002\u2014a series of duets with pianists he favored. At the time, he told me that he saw the duet setting as a chance \u201cto break through the clutter of modern life with something simple and direct.\u201d It was also a way to span his stylistic reach and explore the depths of personal connections that gave rise to some of his best music.<\/div>\n

With Kenny Barron, the usual distractions at the Blue Note were overtaken by a reverential hush. The warmth and softness of Haden\u2019s tone on bass stood out, as did his cunning sense of restraint\u2014most obviously on ballads, but all also Charlie Parker\u2019s \u201cOrnithology\u201d: Haden bit into the classic bebop line with forceful energy, but his rendering was most effective for the notes he left out. With pianist Geri Allen, Haden displayed the intuitive connection that elevated Allen\u2019s formative Blue Note recordings. And since Allen was among the few pianists hired by Ornette Coleman, it was only natural for the two to delve in Coleman\u2019s catalog. When they finished playing two Coleman classics, \u201cLonely Woman\u201d and \u201cRamblin\u2019,\u201d after the crowd roared, Haden took a moment to recall the winter of 1959, when, in his early 20s, he came to New York to play the Five Spot in Coleman\u2019s quartet. And he cited the tunes he\u2019d snuck into his solos, learned much earlier, as a very young boy: \u201cBarbara Allen,\u201d \u201cOld Joe Clark,\u201d and \u201cFort Worth Jail.\u201d With Brad Melhdau, Haden highlighted the ambience of romance and intrigue that he conjured with his Quartet West.\u00a0And with Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Haden reveled in his love for the bolero form, and in a relationship that began at a 1986 festival in Havana.
\n\u201cGonzalo\u2019s band came on, he took a piano solo, and I nearly fell of my chair,\u201d Haden told me once, during an interview. \u201cI told the organizers, \u2018Take me back to meet him.\u2019 He spoke very little English at the time. But we arranged to meet the next day. We played for hours.\u201d)\u00a0Haden played on Rubalcaba\u2019s 1990 Blue Note Records debut; Rubalcaba played on and produced two Haden albums, \u201cNocturne\u201d and \u201cLand of the Sun,\u201d both Grammy winners.
\nAccording to the label, Haden had ardently pressed for the release of “Tokyo Adagio”\u00a0shortly before his death.\u00a0As you hear Haden\u2019s interplay with Rubalcaba on the bassist\u2019s composition \u201cSandino,\u201d Ornette Coleman\u2019s \u201cWhen Will the Blues Leave\u201d, Hollywood composer David Raskin\u2019s \u201cMy Love and I,\u201d and others, all taken with deliberate care, as the CD\u2019s title would imply, you can understand why.
\nHere’s what Rubalcaba had to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the 26-year gap in our ages, he never treated me as an inferior in any sense. We had each other\u2019s confidence. We could talk about politics, life, family, business. Spending so much time with him, I learned not only about music, but also about being. Our connection was about love, for the music and for our families, and for each other.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2014compassion, nuance, a love of melody, an unfailing sense of rhythm, a searching mind and a caring heart\u2014were most clearly evident in his work in duets. There was the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Charlie Haden, Master of Duets, With A Beloved Musical Partner, Gonzalo Rubalcaba”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[176,326,327],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}