Jazz Articles about Charlie Haden

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Charlie Haden with Michael Brecker: American Dreams

by Dan McClenaghan
October 22, 2002

American Dreams is an addition to Verve Records' collection of ..."with Strings" sessions pioneered by legedary producer Norman Granz. Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Harry Carney and others gave this genre a shot for Verve. Something about the grit of the sax sound in front of the orchestral string washes that jazz fans seem to either love or hate. The strongest impression several listenings of of American Dreams leaves is: What a great quartet. “Charlie Haden with Michael Brecker" ...

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Charlie Haden: Nocturne

by Jim Santella
February 1, 2002

What do you hear in darkness? The little things? Sounds that go unnoticed during the day. Crickets, creaking hinges, softly purring machinery, the hum of automobile traffic, and perhaps a distant television or radio. Night creatures are everywhere; but you don't see them. You hear the same things they hear, though; and it helps you to concentrate on your work.

Charlie Haden's ballad album, Nocturne , follows from his love of film noir. Like his Quartet West, this ...

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Charlie Haden/Egberto Gismonti: In Montreal

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 1, 2001

Back in 1989, the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal organized several tribute concerts surrounding bassist Charlie Haden and many of his renowned peers. Of the various and sundry combinations put on display, the pairing of Haden with Brazilian composer and master musician Egberto Gismonti was surely the most inspired. Far from a marketing ploy, this duo seemed perfectly logical, considering that Haden and Gismonti had joined forces with Don Cherry a decade earlier to form Magico, a “world music” ...

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Charlie Haden/Egberto Gismonti: In Montreal

by AAJ Staff
October 1, 2001

Twelve years after the fact, this live duet performance from the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival has finally been brought to light. It's a wonderful combination: Charlie Haden is comfortable in just about any setting (consider his tenures with Ornette Coleman, the Liberation Music Orchestra, and Keith Jarrett's American Quartet). Egberto Gismonti has been continuously honing and refining his idiosyncratic folk/jazz/Brazillian guitar (and piano) work on a couple dozen recordings in different settings since the '70s.

The '89 Montreal Jazz Festival ...

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Michael Brecker: Nearness of You: The Ballad Book

by David Adler
July 1, 2001

There comes a time, it seems, when every major-label jazzer has to add a ballads album to his or her discography. That time has come for Michael Brecker, who enlists the formidable Pat Metheny as both producer and guitarist. Along for the ride are three players you may have heard of: Herbie Hancock, Charlie Haden, and Jack DeJohnette. The 11 tracks (divided into two five-track “chapters" and a one-track “epilogue") are flawlessly executed--practically airbrushed--and as mainstream as can be, but ...

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Charlie Haden: The Art Of The Song

by John Sharpe
December 1, 1999

In the early-’60s bassist Charlie Haden worked with avant-garde jazz pioneers Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. In 1969 he founded The Liberation Music Orchestra, an aggregation committed to performing complex, politically charged music. When Haden formed Quartet West in 1986, listeners quickly noted that this group represented a 180 degree shift in his focus. Where the Liberation Orchestra was abrasive and confrontational, Quartet West wallowed in the nostalgic, accessible mainstream. The Art Of The Song is an evocative collection of ...

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Chris Anderson & Charlie Haden: None But The Lonely Heart

by Joel Roberts
July 1, 1998

Chris Anderson is one of the unsung heroes of modern jazz piano. A revered figure among musicians, largely for his role as mentor to a young Herbie Hancock, Anderson has long been hindered by illness from aggressively pursuing his rightful place in the jazz limelight. As Charlie Haden poignantly states in the album's liner notes, “Chris is risking his life with every chord, that's how much it means to him." Although he has performed with everyone from Charlie Parker to ...