CHARLIE HADEN - A DOCUMENTARY FILM BY RETO CADUFF
ABOUT CHARLIE HADEN
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 America’s heartland for Los Angeles, where he met and played with such legends as Art Pepper, Hampton Hawes, and Dexter Gordon.
In 1959, Haden he teamed with Ornette Coleman to form the saxophonist’s pioneering quartet (alongside trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins). The seminal collaboration produced the deified albums The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change Of A Century - a milestone in the history of modern music. He has played with John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Pat Metheny, Abbey Lincoln, Bill Frisell, Chet Baker and so many more of the jazz hierarchy, but also with people like John Lennon, Ginger Baker, Ringo Starr, Beck, Ricky Lee Jones as well as the Foo Fighters.
With his own highly acclaimed Quartet West and the larger and influential Liberation Music Orchestra (that he developed with the remarkable Carla Bley), Haden has left his mark as a band leader as well. His talent to surround the perfectly fitting musicians for his various projects has gotten him not only the respect of his peers but has also resulted in some magical recordings. 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) .
Haden’s 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 collections as 2002’s inventive alliance with Michael Brecker.
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, France’s Grand Prix Du Disque (Charles Cros) Award, Japan’s SWING Journal Gold, Silver and Bronze awards, Montreal Jazz Festival’s Miles Davis Award.
For Charlie Haden, musical sounds - melodies that uplift or intrigue - are more important than the bass itself that he fell in love with as a child. He expresses himself through the instrument, but what the tries to accomplish (and succeeds with great consistency) is the creation of quality music. Music that defies boundaries and genres. Acoustic beauty.
