Charlie Haden/Liberation Music Orchestra: Not In Our Name

Haden and Bley founded the Liberation Music Orchestra in '69, and this is only the band's fourth album in 35 years. The title Not In Our Name comes from the window posters displayed by householders throughout Europe in protest at the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq—Haden noticed the posters while on tour in '03.

Moved to create an album which articulated his own and many other Americans' opposition to the war, Haden reassembled the LMO and asked Bley to arrange material by a wide range of American composers—from Ornette Coleman, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Bley and himself to Antonin Dvorak and Samuel Barber.

Haden says he chose all American composers because he wanted make a statement that "just because you're not for everything that this administration is doing, doesn't mean that you're not patriotic." To emphasise that point, the medley "America The Beautiful" includes the African-American anthem "Lift Every Voice And Sing" and Coleman's "Skies Of America," while Bley's gutsily reggaefied arrangement of Metheny's "This Is Not America" quotes "Dixie," "The Star Spangled Banner," and "Battle Hymn Of The Republic." The bitter- sweet, ironic inclusion of iconic patriotic anthems within Not In Our Name is underscored by the strange and dissonant voicings Bley employs in her arrangements. You hear things differently, and maybe you understand them differently too, just like Bley and Haden intend.

On a purely artistic level, the music is stunning throughout. Michael Rodriguez's warm and embracing trumpet references both Chet Baker and Fats Navarro, and his showcase "Goin' Home" is one of many highlights; Ahnee Sharon Freeman and Joe Daley are awesome, their French horn and tuba playing truly astonishing, genius achievements; Steve Cardenas' guitar is a South of the Border delight; and the sax section is comprised of three stone stellar giants. Haden and Bley solo infrequently, but beautifully.

"So now," writes Haden in his liner notes, "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!" It continues in little ol' England too.

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