ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin]

CHARLIE HADEN R.I.P. 1937-2014

Charlie Haden, a legendary jazz bassist and original member of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, died on Friday (July 11, 2014) after a prolonged battle with an undisclosed illness, according to his label, ECM. He was 76. Born in Shenandoah, Iowa in 1937 and raised on a farm, Haden helped to revolutionize double bass playing in jazz music as a member of saxophonist Coleman's free jazz quartet in the late 1950s. A bout with polio at 15 damaged nerves in Haden’s vocal cords and ended his singing career, but he continued to play the bass. Haden also collaborated with artists like John Coltrane, Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, Billy Higgins, Chet Baker and Pat Metheny, among many others. In 1967, Haden joined pianist Keith Jarrett's ensemble, becoming a key member of the troupe before forming the band Old and New Dreams with Cherry. Haden also founded the Liberation Music Orchestra in 1969 with composer Carla Bley, which blended experimental jazz with political activism.

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It wasn’t obvious at the beginning that jazz was cultivated to be protest music. The earliest hints were sung by blacks already given a platform in white society. The most famous is Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit about illegal lynchings of blacks by white mobs in rural America. The next time jazz exploded with social commentary was during the '50s and '60s when musicians took ethnic styles and merged them back with black rhythms. Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite from 1960 was exemplery of an insistent style. The tradition continues with Wayne Shorter’s soft ballad for Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the Burmese resistance leader and Charlie Haden’s long-lived Liberation Music Orchestra. Here’s a lively outing as the band performs its latest album, Not In Our Name, live at the Berlin Jazz Festival. - The Little Chicken

Click on the panels to download artwork

Charlie Haden
And The Liberation Music Orchestra
Jazz Fest Berlin 2005 [no label 1CD]
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, November 3, 2005

Haden forgoes the exquisite settings of his Quartet West jazz to once more immerse himself in protest music. This time the theme is to reflect on America and what it should stand for - justice, democracy and equality. Hence the title of his latest album, Not In Our Name.

The players at this concert are not familiar on his quartet outings. But with Carla Bley conducting and playing piano, this big band is able to carry Haden’s passion, ideas and protest with zeal and accuracy.

Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality, stereo MP3s - sample rate of 192 kibit/s). As far as we can ascertain, these live tracks have never been officially released.

Click on the link to order Liberation Music Orchestra CDs.

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