Ted Kurland Associates Presents Two Charlie Haden Projects for 2002-2003

Boston, MA (11/19/02) -- Grammy Award-winning bassist Charlie Haden has selected Ted Kurland Associates as his exclusive Booking Agent on a worldwide basis. Charlie's latest project, AMERICAN DREAMS, has already garnered the same kind of buzz in the press that greeted his Grammy Award winning NOCTURNE and his Pat Metheny duet album, BEYOND THE MISSOURI SKY.

Haden, called “a poet of the bass," gained prominence in Ornette Coleman's ground-breaking Quartet of 1957. Since that auspicious beginning, Haden's “poetry" has given flight to all emotional levels of jazz, from the energetic and muscular hard bop and the cerebral avant-garde to the heartfelt and soulful music informed by the country music of his youth in Missouri. Haden and Carla Bley formed the twelve-piece Liberation Music Orchestra in 1969 whose album brought together all sides of that emotional spectrum to win countless awards (France's Grand Prix Charles Cross, Japan's Gold Disc, and a Grammy nomination, among others). Throughout his career, Haden has been fundamental in shaping the role of the bass to become a more direct participant in group improvisation, liberating the bassist from the role of accompanist. Charlie is the founder of the Department of Jazz Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, and was recently honored with the Jazz Educator of the Year award by the Los Angeles Jazz Society.

Charlie has garnered 15 Grammy nominations. NOCTURNE, an album full of boleros, the sensuous ballads that have fueled the romance of Latin America for generations won a Grammy this year for best Latin Jazz album and was also nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. Charlie's second Grammy was awarded to BEYOND THE MISSOURI SKY, his album of impressionistic Americana duets created with Pat Metheny.

AMERICAN DREAMS, recorded with Michael Brecker and a 20-piece orchestra, pulls together a lush and seductive portrait of the ideals and inherent promise of our nation with stirring renditions of songs by Haden, Jarrett, Metheny, Meldau and others. Haden's emotional interplay and poignant reverie, highlighted by a haunting version of “America The Beautiful," creates what Billboard has called “a sense of renewal and exploration." TKA arranged for the premiere concert of this project with the Berklee String Orchestra this December in Boston and a short tour is presently being created around this date, In 2003, TKA is planning a comprehensive world tour to support the release of the album.

NOCTURNE is also slated to be booked in the coming year by Ted Kurland Associates.