CHARLIE HADEN

Charles Edward Haden (born August 6, 1937) is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Haden is also known for his signature lyrical bass lines and is one of the most respected bassists and jazz composers today.

Biography

Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa, and raised in a musical family, which often performed together on the radio playing country music and American folk songs. Haden made his professional debut as a singer when he was two years old, and continued singing with his family until he contracted a mild form of polio when he was 15. The polio damaged his throat muscles and vocal cords, and as a result, Haden was unable to control his pitch while singing. A few years before contracting polio, Haden had become interested in jazz, and began playing his older brother's double bass. Eventually he set his sights on Los Angeles, and to save money for the trip took a job as house bassist for ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.

Haden moved to LA in 1957, and quickly began playing professionally, including stints with pianist Hampton Hawes and saxophonist Art Pepper. He began playing with Ornette Coleman in the late 1950s, culminating with The Shape of Jazz to Come. This album was released to much controversy at the time, and Haden himself remarked that the harmolodic style of playing was so confusing to him at first that he resigned himself to repeating Coleman's lines on the bass. It was only later that he had enough confidence to start playing his own lines during the performances.

Besides his association with Ornette Coleman, Haden was also a member of Keith Jarrett's trio and "American quartet" from 1967 to 1976 with Paul Motian and Dewey Redman.[1] He played in the collective Old and New Dreams.

He went on to lead the Liberation Music Orchestra in the 1970s. Largely arranged by Carla Bley, their music was very experimental, exploring the realms of free jazz and political music at the same time; the first album focused specifically on the Spanish Civil War. The LMO has had a shifting membership comprising a "who's who" of jazz instrumentalists. Through Bley's arranging, they have concentrated on a wide palette of brass instruments, including tuba, French horn, and trombone, in addition to the more standard trumpet and reed section. The LMO's 1982 album "The Ballad of the Fallen" commented again on the Spanish Civil War as well as the political instability and United States involvement in Latin America. In 1990, the orchestra returned with "Dream Keeper," a more heterogeneous album which drew on American gospel music and South African music to comment on politics in Latin America and apartheid in South Africa. The album featured choral contributions from the Oakland Youth Chorus.

In 1971, while on tour in Portugal, Haden decided to dedicate a performance of his "Song for Che" to the anticolonialist revolutionaries in the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau. The following day, he was detained at the Lisbon airport, jailed, and interrogated by the DGS (the Portuguese secret police). He was promptly released the same day after the intervention of the American cultural attaché, though he was later interviewed by the FBI in the United States about his choice of dedication.

Thematic exploration of genres not typically considered to be jazz standards became one of the signature approaches of the Charlie Haden Quartet West. Started in 1987, the Quartet consists of Ernie Watts on sax, Alan Broadbent on piano, and Larance Marable on drums. Quartet West's albums feature lush, romantic arrangements by Broadbent, often with strings, of music from the 1930s and 1940s, often music associated with films of that period.

Haden has also been active over the years working in duets with pianists such as Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, and Denny Zeitlin. He has explored spiritual hymns with Jones, American folk music in American Hymns, and Cuban folk music in Nocturne.

In 1989, Haden was featured at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and performed in concert every night of the festival, with different combos and bands. Each of these events was recorded, and most have been released in the series "The Montreal Tapes."

In late 1996, he collaborated with Pat Metheny on the album Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), exploring the music that influenced them in their childhood experiences in Missouri with what they call "contemporary impressionistic americana."

Haden reconvened Liberation Music Orchestra in 2005, with largely new members, for the album Not In Our Name, released on Verve Records. The album dealt primarily with the contemporary political situation in the United States.

A feature length documentary Charlie Haden is in production.

Haden's most recent release, Ramblin' Boy, features several members of his immediate family, along with Béla Fleck, Pat Metheny, Elvis Costello, and others. The album, released on 23 September 2008, harkens back to his days of playing Americana and bluegrass music with his parents on their radio show. A concert tour with Quartet West (with a new drummer) is also scheduled for the late summer.

Family

His son Josh Haden is a bass guitarist and singer. He recorded with 1980s punk band Trecherous Jaywalkers (who recorded for SST Records), and is presently a member of Spain. His triplet daughters, Petra, Tanya and Rachel Haden, are all musicians. Formerly of that dog., Petra was a member of progressive folk group The Decemberists, Rachel was a founding member of rock band, The Rentals, and Tanya is married to actor Jack Black.

Discography

The Shape of Jazz to Come and "Change of the Century" (Ornette Coleman, 1959)
Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation (Ornette Coleman) (1961)
Life Between The Exit Signs (Keith Jarrett, Paul Motian, 1967)
Liberation Music Orchestra (1969)
My Goals Beyond (John McLaughlin) (1970)
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (Yoko Ono (1970)
Escalator Over The Hill (Carla Bley, 1971)
Expectations (Keith Jarrett, 1971)
Science Fiction (Ornette Coleman, 1971)
Fort Yawuh (Keith Jarrett, 1973)
Treasure Island (Keith Jarrett, 1974)
Death and the Flower (Keith Jarret, 1974)
Brown Rice (Don Cherry, 1975)
Old and New Dreams (Old and New Dreams, 1976)
The Survivors' Suite (Keith Jarrett, 1977)
Musique Mecanique (Carla Bley, 1978)
Folk Songs (with Jan Garbarek and Egberto Gismonti, 1979)
Chair in the Sky (Mingus Dynasty, an ensemble of Charles Mingus sidemen, along with Joni Mitchell, 1980)
Time Remembers One Time Once (1981)
The Ballad of the Fallen (Liberation Music Orchestra, 1982)
Silence (Chet Baker, Enrico Pieranunzi, Billy Higgins, 1987)
In Angel City (1988)
Private Collection (1988)
The Montreal Tapes, vol.1 (Charlie Haden, Paul Bley, Paul Motian, 1989)
Dream Keeper (Liberation Music Orchestra, 1990)
Pop Pop (Rickie Lee Jones, 1991)
Steal Away (Hank Jones, 1995)
Night And The City (Kenny Barron, 1996)
"Deep In The Blues" ( James Cotton, Joe Louis Walker, Charlie Haden, Dave Maxwell, 1996)
In The Year Of The Dragon (Geri Allen, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, 1998)
Always Say Goodbye (1993)
Coming Back Home (Charlie Haden, Ginger Baker, Bill Frisell, Ginger Baker Trio), (1994)
Night and the City (Kenny Barron), (1996)
None but the Lonely Heart (1997)
Beyond the Missouri Sky (Pat Metheny) (1997)
The Art of the Song (1999)
Magico (Jan Garbarek, Egberto Gismonti, 2000)
Nocturne (2001)
Land of the Sun (2004)
Not in Our Name (Liberation Music Orchestra, 2005)
Special Encounter (Enrico Pieranunzi, Paul Motian, 2005)
Heartplay (Charlie Haden, Antonio Forcione, 2006)
Private Collection (Quartet West, live), Naim, 2007
Family and Friends - Rambling Boy (Charlie Haden), Decca, 2008

References

a b c d e allmusic Biography
Jazz Legend Charlie Haden on His Life, His Music and His Politics. Democracy Now. September 01, 2006 Accessed January 5, 2009.
IMDB entry for Charlie Haden documentary. Accessed January 5, 2009.

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Born in Shenandoah, Iowa, Charlie Haden began his life in music almost immediately, singing on his parents country & western radio show at the tender age of 22 months. He started playing bass in his early teens and in 1957, left Americas heartland for Los Angeles, where he met and played with such legends as Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes, and Dexter Gordon. In 1959, Haden teamed with Ornette Coleman to form the saxophonists pioneering quartet (alongside trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins). In addition to his still-influential work with Coleman, Haden also collaborated with a number of adventurous jazz giants, including John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Keith Jarrett, and Pat Metheny. In 1969, Haden joined forces with pianist/composer Carla Bley, founding the Liberation Music Orchestra. The groups self-titled debut is a true milestone of modern music, blending experimental big band jazz with the folk songs of the Spanish Civil War to create a powerfully original work of musical/political activism. An acoustic bassist of extraordinary gifts, Hadens talents as a musicain have been in constant demand by his fellow artists. As a result, he has collaborated with a genuinely stunning array of musicians, including Hank Jones, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Paul Motian, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Brecker, Kenny Barron, and Pat Metheny (with whom Haden shared a 1997 Best Jazz Instrumental Individual/Small Group Grammy® Award for their Beyond the Missouri Sky) . Hadens love of world music has also seen him teaming with a variety of diverse international players, including Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi, and Portuguese guitar giant Carlos Paredes. In addition, Haden has explored diverse streams of American popular music with both his acclaimed Quartet West, as well as on such recent collections as 2002s inventive alliance with Michael Brecker, AMERICAN DREAMS. Charlie Haden who was invited to establish the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts in 1982, has earned countless honors from around the globe, including and the Los Angeles Jazz Society prize for Jazz Educator of the Year, two Grammy Awards (alongside a multitude of nominations), myriad Down Beat readers and critics poll winners, a Guggenheim fellowship, four NEA grants for composition, Frances Grand Prix Du Disque (Charles Cros) Award, Japans SWING Journal Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. Montreal Jazz Festivals Miles Davis Award.

Background information

Birth name Charles Edward Haden
Born August 6, 1937 (age 71)
Origin Shenandoah, Iowa, U.S.
Genre(s) Free jazz
Mainstream jazz
Post-bop
Hard bop
Occupation(s) Double bassist
Instrument(s) Double bass
Years active 1957 - present
Associated acts Ornette Coleman, Pat Metheny, Liberation Music Orchestra, Quartet West

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Charlie Haden Returns To His Bluegrass Roots

Weekend Edition Sunday, September 21, 2008 - During radio's Golden Age, live country and bluegrass shows were popular from coast to coast. Back then, listeners to KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa, might have tuned in to hear the Haden Family Band. Charles Edward Haden stole the show as the 2-year-old yodeling cowboy.

Charlie Haden's singing career lasted only until his teens, when he was stricken with a strain of polio that affected his vocal cords. But with music coursing through his veins, he went on to become one of the jazz world's most sought-after bassists and composers. He played with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane and Ringo Starr, and has been a longtime collaborator with guitarist Pat Metheny.

But the bluegrass music of his youth was an irresistible siren song. So now, with his son Josh and his triplet daughters (Petra, Tanya and Rachel), he's made the recording that's been on his mind for years: Rambling Boy.

Bringing Back His Roots

Haden has been playing jazz for years, so a bluegrass project might seem a little out of place. When his wife Ruth Cameron got the family together for his mom's 80th birthday, she suggested that the group sing "You Are My Sunshine" in the living room. It reinvigorated an idea that had been in the back of Haden's head for a long time.

Haden admits that he was nervous about the project at first, because he hadn't done this kind of music in many years. But that didn't seem to be a problem for the family.

"Everybody just did it for me," Haden says. "I just sat back and played the bass."

The list of players on Rambling Boy is like a who's-who of Americana musicians from Nashville and beyond. It includes dobro player Jerry Douglas; guitarist Sam Bush; singers Elvis Costello, Vince Gill and Rosanne Cash; and Haden's frequent collaborator, Pat Metheny. Many of these musicians came to the recording because of Haden's jazz background.

The beautiful harmonies of Haden's daughters come from years of singing together, starting very young. 

"We would sing three-part harmonies just for fun, because we shared a room growing up," Tanya says. "Before we'd go to bed, we'd all sing 'Kumbaya,' and we'd all fight over the high harmony. And I'd always be stuck with the low one." 

Welcome To The Family

It seems to be a little-known fact that Tanya Haden's husband is actor and comedian Jack Black, star of movies such as Tropic Thunder, School of Rock and High Fidelity. He sings "Old Joe Clark" on Rambling Boy. He's mostly known for his rock 'n' roll persona — and recordings with Tenacious D — but here takes on bluegrass music.

"I was nervous about it," Black says. "But once I got into the studio and Charlie taught me the melody line and the lyrics, something took over my body, and I felt like I was transported to another time."

Host Liane Hansen asks Black, "Are you torn now with your sons — do you want to say, 'I want you to learn this rock 'n' roll, but, you know, there's this bluegrass over here, too'?"

"No, I'm only teaching folk and bluegrass and jazz," Black says. "They're not even going to know that rock exists. And I'm doing a new movie: School of Jazz."

Charlie Haden has not sung in a long time, but felt strongly about recording a version of "Oh Shenandoah" for the new album. 

"I wanted to do 'Oh Shenandoah' because that's the town I was born in — as a tribute to my mom and dad for giving me all this music," Haden says. "I don't really sing this as a singer, because I'm not a singer. But I wanted to do it for them."
 
Related NPR Stories
Nov. 22, 2006
Petra Haden & The Sellouts: Unclassifiable
Mar. 6, 2005
Petra Haden Takes on Standards, and the Who
Jan. 9, 2000
Charlie Haden: The Art Of Song
Nov. 11, 2004
Charlie Haden on the Creation of Free Jazz

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In the midst of a fragile, post-9/11 atmosphere, legendary bassist-composer-bandleader Charlie Haden was inspired to create his meditative American Dreams as a kind of healing balm for a shattered national psyche. As he wrote in the liner notes of that majestic 2002 symphonic offering: “I always dreamed of a world without cruelty and greed, of a humanity with the same creative brilliance of our solar system, of an America worthy of the dreams of Martin Luther King, and the majesty of the Statue of Liberty...This music is dedicated to those who still dream of a society with compassion, deep creative intelligence, and a respect for the preciousness of life -- for our children, and for our future.”

Two years later, in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, Haden was inspired to speak out this time using the Liberation Music Orchestra to articulate his concerns. Not In Our Name, the title of this new cd, stands as a musical manifesto for the disaffection many people in America and all over the world feel about the manner in which the present administration is conducting its affairs both at home and in the global arena. The material on Not In Our Name comes strictly from American composers. As Haden explained, “There was a necessity that I felt to play music from American composers in protest to what’s going on, to make a statement that just because you’re not for everything that this administration is doing, doesn’t mean that you’re not patriotic. So I wanted to do ‘America the Beautiful’ to show everybody that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done here in this country. And inside that song, Carla put the African-American anthem ‘Lift Every Voice And Sing.’ and Ornette Coleman’s provocative ”Skies Over America” (the title track of Coleman’s first recorded orchestral symphonic work from 1972). And then there is a Pat Metheny song that I’ve always liked, which he wrote for the movie, The Falcon and the Snowman. At the end of the movie they do this song with David Bowie singing called ‘This Is Not America.’ We do ‘Amazing Grace,’ Dvorak’s ‘Goin’ Home, which is from his New World Symphony. And we also do ‘Throughout,’ which is a Bill Frisell song that my daughter Petra did with Bill on a duet record that they did (2003’s Petra Haden & Bill Frisell on True North). When I heard it I really loved it and wanted to put it on the record. We also do ‘Adagio for Strings’ by Samuel Barber, put to a chamber orchestra, which I always wanted to do.”

This fourth Liberation Music Orchestra recording reunites Haden with his longtime friend and colleague Carla Bley. Recorded in Rome last summer at the end of a triumphant tour of Europe, Not In Our Name, produced by Haden, Bley and Haden’s wife Ruth Cameron, features a Liberation Music Orchestra lineup comprised of seasoned LMO veterans like French horn player Ahnee Sharon Freeman and tuba ace Joe Daley along with newcomers like trumpeter Michael Rodriguez and alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon (both of whom played on Haden’s Grammy Award-winning Land of the Sun last year), tenor saxophonists Chris Cheek and Tony Malaby, trumpeter Seneca Black, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, guitarist Steve Cardenas and drummer Matt Wilson. 

Haden says that the genesis for the title of this latest Liberation Music Orchestra project happened two years ago when he was on tour in Europe with guitarist Pat Metheny, performing music from their 1996 Verve collaboration, Beyond the Missouri Sky. “I noticed when we were walking around in Italy and Spain that there were banners unfurled from different balconies of apartment buildings that said, ‘Not in Our Name,’” recalls Haden. “That’s the first time I had seen that slogan before, and that really impressed me...that the people in the apartments would do that. And then this past summer when we were on tour in Europe with the Liberation Music Orchesta, Miguel Zenon came up to me at some point and said, ‘Man, I just had this dream last night that you should call your song ‘Not In Our Name.’ And I thought that it was a great idea to also call the album that as well.”

Bley’s brilliant arrangements underscore pieces by Antonin Dvorak (“Goin’ Home” from the New World Symphony), Samuel Barber (a gorgeous chamber rendition of “Adagio For Strings”), Bill Frisell (an adaptation of Bill’s lyrical gem “Throughout” from his 1982 debut on ECM, In Line) and Pat Metheny (a reggaefied feel on the pensive “This Is Not America,” with sly quotes from “Dixie,” “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic” dropped in for ironic effect). Elsewhere, Bley’s singular arranging skills enhance Haden’s poignant waltz-time title track and her own dark, dirge-like “Blue Anthem,” as well as adding layers of texture and mystique to a stirring interpretation of the traditional gospel number “Amazing Grace” and a potent, 17-minute medley of “America The Beautiful”. 

Haden writes in his liner notes to Not In Our Name“, “the beautiful arrangements and performance of Carla Bley are to be marveled at.” Her use of dissonant, minor key voicings in the horns on “America The Beautiful,” for example, adds layers of innuendo and irony to that staid patriotic theme. Throughout Not In Our Name, Bley’s subtle tweaking of harmonies sets an appropriately pointed tone for what is essentially a jazz protest record. “Carla is something else!” says Haden. “She voices her chords so special, I can tell in a minute that it’s her. She’s the person that I really trust to do the arrangements for the orchestra. She’s done the arranging on every record and I’ve never, ever been disappointed.” 

Aside from creating beautiful arrangements for all the pieces on Not In Our Name, Bley takes us to the Church with her piano playing on ‘America The Beautiful,’ though Haden admits, “I always have tried to get Carla to play more piano but she’s very shy. She doesn’t want to play that often and I keep encouraging her because when she does play, it’s so great, man. She really opened up on that tour we did last summer, especially when we did ‘We Shall Overcome’ as a blues!”

Bley’s slow-moving, gospel-inflected arrangement of “Amazing Grace” serves as a perfect vehicle for Haden’s signature deep-toned bass solo, while her luminous interpretation of Dvorak’s “Goin’ Home” provides a beautiful showcase for trumpeter Rodriguez’s golden tone and soulful restraint and also for alto saxophonist Zenon’s pungent tone and fluent lines. “Michael has this sound on the trumpet that you don’t hear much today,” says Haden. “He’s got this really Chet Baker-Fats Navarro sound. It’s more gentle, soft...gorgeous. On that Dvorak piece, ‘Goin’ Home,’ he gets this beautiful breathy sound that Chet and Fats used to get, and Miles too. And it’s rare when you combine that with the gift of improvisation. The guy is so spontaneous and gifted at creating these beautiful melodies. Miguel, of course, I had played with on Land of the Sun. I called him to do that record because I had heard him play over in Europe and he really impressed me.” 

On “Throughout,” the sparseness of Bley’s own piano playing blends with Cardenas’ arpeggiated figures on nylon string guitar, bringing a rare delicacy to that poignant Frisell piece. Haden contributes another resounding low-end solo here while the piece also provides a perfect example of the two distinctly different solo approaches taken by tenor saxophonists Cheeks and Malaby. “Tony and Chris I had heard before playing with Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band. They have two very different ways of approaching the music, but both of which are brand new. They’re searching for new intervals, new melodies, which is something I strive for and always have and always will. So these guys really impressed me by having very distinctive sounds. That’s another secret of this artform, if you’re dedicated to it, is discovering how to get your sound through the instrument the way your ears are really hearing it. And that’s what they all do. You can really hear the difference between Tony and Chris when they play their separate solos on the Bill Frisell song. It’s just amazing.”

On the closer, Barber’s hymn-like “Adagio,” the LMO strikes an uncommon balance between delicacy and emotional power, just as the LMO had some 17 years earlier on Haden’s own fragile opus, “Silence” (from 1982’s Ballad of the Fallen). “I was a little bit afraid of the ‘Adagio’,” admits Haden, “because Samuel Barber’s composition with string orchestra is so delicate that you really have to play it precisely and in tune. But everybody did great. And the arrangement is so great. It’s in all different time signatures. Carla makes it happen, man. She is a great conductor.”

Grounding this edition of the Liberation Music Orchestra with a deft, eminently musical touch on the kit is drummer Matt Wilson “I had met Matt in Norway at the festival in Molda when I was working there with Pat Metheny,” recalls Haden. “Actually, he had called me right before that festival and said, ‘Charlie, you don’t know me. My name is Matt Wilson. I know you and I love your music and all the stuff that you do with Dewey. I play a lot with Dewey, who gave me your number. Anyway, my wife’s about to have triplets. I just wanted to ask your advice.’ So that cracked me up. And I just told him, ‘Man, be prepared for a trip!’ I had a chance to play with him a couple of times after that (including at the San Francisco Jazz Festival a couple of years ago). I’m really glad he could make this tour with Liberation Music Orchestra because he really propels that band.”

“The key to everything to me is the power behind every note you play,” he continues. “And that power can be quiet power. And it also is a dynamic tone. It’s just the way you touch your instrument, whether it be keyboard or the drums or the bass or the horns. This power gives you an assuredness and you can instantly hear it when someone’s playing music with this quality...that they’re very sure of why they’re playing music. And every phrase that they play is coming from that. And that’s the way that Matt plays the drums. I’ve played different concerts with different drummers and the real musical ones have this ability. And Matt does.”

As a musical statement, Not In Our Name is a profoundly moving and beautiful collection of tunes, full of exhilarating ensemble work and bristling, emotive solos by some outstanding musicians on the New York scene. As a political statement, it stands as Haden’s rallying cry against an administration that would subvert the greater good of the country. As he writes in the album’s liner notes: “So now, although we lost the election, we have not lost the commitment to reclaim our country in the name of humanity and decency. Don't give up -- the struggle continues!” 

In a career spanning five decades, Haden continues to create music that is at once revolutionary and uplifting. “I want to expand jazz,” he says. “I don’t want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.” He succeeds royally with Not In Our Name.

* * * * *

Born in Shenandoah, Iowa on August 6, 1937, Charles Edward Haden began his life in music at the tender age of 22 months, singing on his parents’ country & western radio show. He started playing bass in his early teens and eventually left America’s heartland for Los Angeles. “This is the first town that I came to when I left high school in Missouri,” he recalls. “I came to L.A. just to find Hampton Hawes. And when I got here in 1956, there were a lot of jazz clubs and there were a lot of great musicians on the scene. It was a lot like New York in that aspect -- lots of after-hours jam sessions, and playing as much as you could play. Those were definitely exciting times.” Along with Hampton Hawes, Haden also played with such jazz legends as Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and Paul Bley before teaming up with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins for regular gigs at the Hillcrest Club. In 1959, that pioneering quartet came east to New York, secured an extended residency at the Five Spot and began recording a series of seminal avant garde albums, including The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century, which revolutionized the course of modern jazz. In addition to his hugely influential work with Ornette Coleman through the ‘60s, Haden subsequently collaborated with a number of adventurous jazz giants, including John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd. 

In 1969, Haden joined forces with pianist/composer Carla Bley, founding the Liberation Music Orchestra. The group’s self-titled debut is a true milestone of modern music, blending experimental big band jazz with the folk songs of the Spanish Civil War to create a powerfully original work of musical/political activism. From 1967-1976, Haden played in Keith Jarrett’s stellar trio, quartet and quintet which included drummer Paul Motian, percussionist Guilherme Franco and tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman. In 1976, he joined with fellow Ornette Coleman alumni Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and Ed Blackwell to form Old and New Dreams. A few years later he played alongside Dewey Redman, Michael Brecker and Jack DeJohnette in Pat Metheny’s 80/81 band.

In 1982, Haden established the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts and in 1986 he formed his straight ahead Quartet West with saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Larance Marable. Through the ‘90s, he continued playing with Quartet West and the Liberation Music Orchestra while also producing and recording or performing with Pat Metheny, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Scofield, Tom Harrell, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Ginger Baker, Bill Frisell, Jack DeJohnette and Michael Brecker. He has garnered countless awards and Grammy nominations as well as three Grammy’s. There have also been a few rare concert reunions with Ornette Coleman. More recently, Haden has collaborated with such jazz greats as Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, Joe Lovano, Alice Coltrane and even players outside the jazz genre such as Beck and Ringo Starr. His love of world music has also seen him teaming with a variety of diverse international players for many years, including Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi and Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes. Charlie Haden is beyond category.

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Charlie Haden - bassist, composer, bandleader, and conscientiously political artist - is truly a musician of imaginative, intuitive, and communicative powers. A "poet" of the bass, he has contributed his virtuosity to many of the most compelling records in jazz. As a vital part of the jazz revolution begun by his mentor, Ornette Coleman, he leads his own groups and through his music, communicates his deep, rich, resonant sound reflecting a profound sensibility to music and to life.
Charlie Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa in 1937. From the time he was two years old until he was fifteen, he sang on the radio, and later television, every day with his family's country and western group. He learned to play the bass during his teens and after graudating from high school, moved to Los Angeles where he met and worked closely with Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes, Dexter Gordon, and Paul Bley. It was in Los Angeles in 1957 that Charlie also met Ornette Coleman. It was a prophetic meeting, for Charlie became the bass player for Ornette's adventurous new quartet, a quartet which also included Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, and Billy Higgins on drums. This group caused a revolution in the jazz world by liberating the soloist from conventional, pre-determined structures, both harmonic and rhythmic.
Charlie played a vital role in this revolutionary new approach, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist, and sometimes moved indipendently. In this respect, like such musicians as Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, he helped to change the role of the bass from player being strictly an accompanist to becoming a more direct partecipant in music making and thus an important individual voice.
Not only did Charlie continue to work with Ornette throughout the 1960's, but he recorded with John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and Pee Wee Russell as well. In 1966 he began touring with Keith Jarrett. In 1969, Charlie and composer Carla Bley assembled eleven musicians including Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri, and Roswell Rudd, under the banner of Liberation Music Orchestra to make a record that has become a milestone in recorded jazz. The record is a heartfelt and emotional statement about freedom from oppression and repression. It won the Grand Prix Charles Cros (the French equivalent of the Germany) as well as Japan's Gold Disc Award from the magazine Swing Journal. It also received a Grammy nomination. In the same year, Charlie was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition. In 1976, Haden, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, and Ed Blackwell (all of whom had worked closely with Ornette Coleman) formed the group Old and New Dreams to keep alive Ornette's compositional and improvisational approaches - as well as his music. A debut album was recorded for Black Saint and several subsequent albums were done for ECM.
Charlie reorganized the Liberation Music Orchestra in 1984 with many of the original members - Paul Motian, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Carla Bley, and Michael Mantler. The group was joined by some new faces - Mick Goodrick, Jim Pepper, and Steve Slagle among them. Says Charlie: "The whole underlying theme for the new music...is to communicate honest, human values, and in doing that to try to improve the quality of life". The new album Ballad of the Fallen (MCA/Impulse), was named Record of the Year in the 1984 "Downbeat" Critic's Poll. In 1986, Charlie and Jack DeJohnette, playing with Ornette Coleman and Pat Metheny, recorded "Song X", which won the "Down Beat" Reader's and Critic's Poll. Charlie contributed to yet another award winning album in 1987, The Michael Brecker Album, which won both of the "Downbeat" polls. Charlie was also involved recently in another album with Brecker and Herbie Hancock. Also in 1987, Charlie partecipated in the historic reunion tour of the original Ornette Coleman Quartet, which also produced the album In All Languages. Charlie's first venture as a small group leader was Quartet West which debuted in 1987 with Quartet West (Polygram/Verve), and performed to high critical acclaim throughout the world. The group is made up of Los Angeles musicians Ernie Watts on saxophones, Allan Broadbent on piano, and Larance Marable on drums. It's a wonderful group that reflects the vast scope of Charlie's musical interests, as well as adesire to evoke the Raymond Chandler film noir atmosphere of Hollywood in the 1940's. The band plays everything from Pat Metheny to Ornette Coleman to Charlie Parker to Haden's originals (some of which are inspired by the traditional folk tunes he sung as a boy). A second album, In Angel City (Polygram/Verve) followed, and a third, Haunted Heart (Polygram/Verve) will be released in the spring of 1992. Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra completed it's trilogy of recordings with the 1991 release of Dreamkeeper (Blue Note), which had the unique distinction of winning both the "Downbeat" Critic's and Reader's poll as Album of the Year. The Orchestra's repertoire continues to draw it's inspiration from liberation struggles throughout the world. Despite the difficulties of touring with this many musicians, the Liberation Music Orchestra has performed in Europe, Japan, the United States, and Canada, performing most recently at the Hollywood Bowl.
In fitting tribute to a musician who has been involved with so many of the most creative musicians of the last three decades, the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1989 devoted eight consecutive concerts to Charlie, each night featuring him with a different artist or ensemble he has performed with in the past, including the Liberation Music Orchestra, Pat Metheny, Egberto Gismonti, and Gonzalo Rubalcabo. Charlie's interest in World Music is exemplified in his stunning duet recording with the brilliant Portuguese fado guitarist Carlos Paredes, Dialogues (Antilles). Charlie is also Founder of the Jazz Studies program at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. 

Biography courtesy of Polygram.