There is probably no one in jazz, or even the whole wide world of music, who has recorded a greater variety of music than bassist Charlie Haden. Born into a musical family in Iowa, Haden began his musical career as a small child in his family's well-known country and western band. In 1957 he moved to LA where he played with many of the up-and-comers for modern jazz. Most notably, at 22 he became a member of Ornette Coleman's revolutionary free jazz quartet (probably about as far from his C & W roots as one could go). From the mid-'60s through the mid-'70s, Haden was associated with another musical pioneer, Keith Jarrett. In 1969 Haden founded the Liberation Music Orchestra, which blended experimental big band jazz with politically-themed music. During the 1970s Haden began a long, intermittent collaboration with guitarist Pat Metheny. In 1996 the duo released Beyond the Missouri Sky, an album of "contemporary impressionistic Americana." The Penguin Guide described this album as selling "like SnoCones in the desert," and included it in their Core Collection.
Backtracking chronologically a bit, from 1996's Missouri Sky, in 1986 Haden founded the ensemble Quartet West with whom he would work regularly for some time. In contrast to the free jazz of his early career and the "new agey" collaborations with Metheny, Quartet West's recordings were more straight ahead jazz and often leaned toward the nostalgic. In fact, two of their albums Haunted Heart (1986) and Always Say Goodbye (1993) are unashamedly so. Both are inspired by and evocative of the noir novels and movies of the '40s and '50s. They both also include dubbed in music from some of that era's singers and instrumentalists, e.g., Jo Stafford, Ray Nance with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The video that follows is Haunted Heart's "Dance of the Infidels," composed by Bud Powell and first recorded in 1949 .
Although Haden has continued to work regularly with Quartet West, he has by no means limited his output to his collaborations with that ensemble. He has also recorded duet albums with pianists Hank Jones and Denny Zeitlin. One of my favorite CDs in my collection is Night and the City, an evocative live recording with just Haden and Kenny Barron. Below is Barron's "Twilight Song," which is ten minutes long, but my ears think it's worth every second.
If you need further proof of Haden's versatility, in the early 2000s Haden won two consecutive Latin Grammys for Nocturne (1999), a collaborative effort based on Cuban ballads or boleros with Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Land of the Sun (2003), again featuring Rubalcaba, this time exploring Mexican folk music.
In 2008 Haden came full circle in musical career when he released Charlie Haden Family and Friends: Rambling Boy. This album pairs songs associated with his youthful C & W career with the younger generation of the Haden family. Joining in are some of the biggest names in today's country and bluegrass scene, e.g., Vince Gill, Roseanne Cash, Dan Tyminski, and Ricky Skaggs.
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