Charlie HADEN - The Montreal Tapes, Live (with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell) 1994

Charlie HADEN - The Montreal Tapes, Live (with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell) 1994
Recorded live on July 2, 1989 at the
International Jazz Festival- Montréal

Jazz

July, 1989. When Charlie Haden tells the audience at Montreal's tenth Festival: "I'm in heaven...every night...," you can't help remembering that the trio on that particular day was also a fragment of a dream, actually three-quarters of the Old And New Dreams group of ex-Ornettists (without Dewey Redman's tenor), or, rather, three-quarters of the alto saxophonist's original quartet (without Coleman)... In any case, this concert's repertoire is a clear indication that the three musicians had in essence come together again on common ground, a terrain whose contours seem to have become more defined over the decades: the compositions of their former leader.
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It's a no-brainer that a festival week honoring the music of Charlie Haden will include some kind of Ornette Coleman variation, but this trio lineup -- call it either the original Coleman quartet sans Ornette or three-quarters of Old and New Dreams -- still springs some surprises. Apart from Don Cherry's "Art Deco" and "Mopti," it's all Coleman material, but drawn from the very early (circa the Something Else! LP) and very late stages (Broken Shadows/Science Fiction LPs) of his acoustic phase rather than the famed Atlantic period. Musical bonuses quickly become apparent on the opening "The Sphinx" -- Cherry is playing a lot more pocket trumpet than usual for this late-career stage, just as Haden does a lot more turbocharged walking than his latter-day norm. The same holds on Ed Blackwell's spotlight "Happy House," the bass going double time and Cherry romping with high spirits, before the drummer delivers a model solo of polyrhythmic simplicity. "Lonely Woman" is the lone "classic" here, with applause greeting Haden's beautiful opening chord strums, Blackwell's cymbals, and Cherry's mournful muted pocket trumpet. Haden goes deep melancholy with his masterful solo, touching on his Ozark upbringing by quoting a country or folk melody. (It's probably from the public domain, but what is that tune? "John Henry?" The source for "Tom Dooley"?) For good measure, he then tosses in a taste of the riff from his "Ramblin'" solo that became the anchor of "Sex & Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll." Cherry's silliness with instrument sounds wastes a strong Haden-Blackwell effort on "Mopti," but "The Blessing" bounces back with a bopping, bluesy midtempo groove that also serves as the blueprint for the last two pieces. Muted flurries by Cherry or minimal cymbal clicks from Blackwell that generate so much rhythmic propulsion, Haden's old-school, physical walking lines -- it's the small details and quiet touches applied to the unique flavor of Coleman's concept that gives these pieces and this volume of The Montreal Tapes as a whole its value.
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Charlie Haden– Bass
Don Cherry– Pocket trumpet
Ed Blackwell– Drums
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01. The Sphinx
02. Art Deco
03. Happy House
04. Lonely Woman
05. Mopti
06. The Blessing
07. When Will the Blues Leave?
08. Law Years
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Charlie HADEN - Nocturne 2001

Charlie HADEN - Nocturne 2001

Jazz

Charlie Haden has a long-standing interest in Cuban music, first touched on with his Liberation Music Orchestra over 30 years ago. Nocturne expands on that affinity and on the bassist's relationship with Cuban piano virtuoso Gonzalo Rubalcaba, who introduced Haden to the tradition of the Cuban ballad, or bolero. The result is this very unusual mix of slow- to medium-tempo pieces, limpid, sometimes almost somber songs that are filled with yearning romanticism, wistful lyricism, and an inner light. The program includes five Cuban ballads, including "Tres Palabras," almost a jazz standard after recordings by Coleman Hawkins and Joe Henderson, and four from Mexico, among them Arturo Castro's beautiful "Yo Sin Ti." To this, Haden has added two originals and Rubalcaba one, and they're perfectly continuous with the traditional material. Rubalcaba is clearly devoted to these melodies, his usual pyrotechnic flights replaced by subtle harmonic shadings that enrich the original tunes. Haden seems to sculpt these songs anew in his lower register, while drummer Ignacio Berroa adds varied and lilting percussion patterns.
The music is enhanced by a series of superb guest spots. Joe Lovano adds a Getz-like, lyric transparency to four of the songs (and they're all songs, whether they have words or not), while David Sanchez adds his weightier tone to two. Pat Metheny's acoustic guitar makes "Noche de Ronda" a moonlit reverie, while Uruguayan violinist Federico Britos Ruiz adds his own sweetly idiomatic touch to three tracks. Three pieces also gain increasingly dark hues from Rubalcaba's cello-thick string arrangements. Something of a departure for both Haden and Rubalcaba, Nocturne is true to its origins while creating its own ineffable moods.
By Stuart Broomer. AMG.
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Charlie Haden- Bass
Gonzalo Rualcaba- Piano
Ignacio Berroa- Drums
Joe Lovano- Tenor 1,4,7,11
David Sanchez- Tenor 6,10
Pat Metheny- Guitar 2
Frederico Britos Ruiz- Violin 1,5,8
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01. En La Orilla Del Mundo 5:14
02. Noche De Ronda 5:43
03. Nocturnal 6:56
04. Moonlight (Claro de Luna) 5:37
05. Yo sin Ti (Me Without You) 6:02
06. No te Empenes Mas (Don't Try Anymore) 5:30
07. Transparence 6:11
08. El Ciego (The Blind) 5:58
09. Nightfall 6:40
10. Tres Palabras (Three Words) 6:18
11. Contigo en la Distancia/En Nosostros 6:34
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Charlie HADEN with Chet BAKER, E.Pieranunzi, B.Higgins - Silence 1989

Charlie HADEN with Chet BAKER, E.Pieranunzi, B.Higgins - Silence 1989

Jazz

Born and raised in Iowa, he was brought up in a family band that played what he has called hillbilly music. Yet shortly after he arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-l950s, he was playing with the strongest of the West Coast modernists, including Art Pepper and Hampton Hawes, to whose recordings he was to make a dramatic return in the '7Os. An association with Paul Bley led to his joining the Ornette Coleman Quartet, yet even at the height of his sojourn in the avant garde, he perform-
ed with such idiosyncratic members of the mainstream as Red Norvo, Pee Wee Russel and Henry Red Allen. His lustrous, strong sound and his telepathic ability to anticipate soloists are steadfast no matter what the context.
In Silence he offers the eternal midnight of the West Coast soul. This was perhaps inevitable, given the presence of Chet Baker and the incomparably wounded lyricism that made him the rage of jazz in 1952, when – having earlier that year jammed with Charlie Parker – he became a member of Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet. After leading his own groups m the United States for a while, Baker became a world traveller, attracting audiences all over Europe with the restrained passion that defined his singing as well as his trumpet playing. Though often compared with Miles Davis in the early years, he has long since developed an approach all his own. From the first note of his five-chorus solo on the Charlie Parker blues, "Visa", you know you are in the hands of a masterful and economical soloist. He crackles effortlessly on George Shearing's "Conception,” as expected. More impressive, though, is his ability to probe new angles in Thelonious Monk's much over-played "Round Midnight" and Rogers and Hart’s 'MY FunnY Valentine," with which he has been associated for 35 years.
The Italian pianist Enrico Pieranunzi is presently unknovm to the international jazz audience, but his performance here will change that. He brings a refined classicism to jazz, as will be evident in his voicing of the chords to Haden's lovely "Silence”...
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Charlie Haden- Bass
Chet Baker- Trumpet, Vocal
Enrico Pieranunzi- Piano
Billy Higgins- Drums
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01. Visa (5:48)
02. Silence (8:45)
03. Echi (6:09)
04. My Funny Valentine (5:39)
05. 'Round About Midnight (11:36)
06. Conception (6:00)
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