Charlie Haden

Charlie Haden (born August 6, 1937, Shenandoah, Iowa, U.S.—died July 11, 2014, Los Angeles, California) was an American bass virtuoso and bandleader, known particularly as a pioneer of free jazz in the 1960s. He was among the most influential bassists in the jazz world.

From age two Haden sang with his family’s country music band on Midwestern radio and television programs. After graduating from high school in Missouri, he moved to Los Angeles and began to play jazz with saxophonist Art Pepper and others. While working (1957–59) in pianist Paul Bley’s group, Haden began playing free jazz with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, providing accompaniment with lines derived from Coleman’s phrasing. Haden was a member of the quartet that recorded Coleman’s early classic albums (The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century) and that created a sensation in New York City beginning in 1959.

Though Haden left Coleman in late 1960, the two musicians performed together intermittently for several decades thereafter. Haden also worked with other leaders and their ensembles, most often with pianist and saxophonist Keith Jarrett’s 1967–75 trio and quartet. In 1969 Haden formed his Liberation Music Orchestra, which included bebop-oriented as well as free jazz players; he re-formed the orchestra in 1982 and 1990. The group played Carla Bley’s original adaptations of themes from the Spanish Civil War and Latin American resistance movements, as well as original works (such as Haden’s “Song for Che”).

In 1976, with three other ex-Coleman sidemen, Haden formed Old and New Dreams to play, for the most part, Coleman songs. Influenced by bop bassist Wilbur Ware, Haden developed a seemingly simple style centred on swinging rhythms and pungent rhythmic variations, a large, perfectly centred tone, a talent for melodic soloing, and an acute harmonic sensitivity. In 1982 he established the jazz program at California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, California, and he remained a member of the faculty there for some three decades. Meanwhile, in the late 1980s he formed his own bebop-oriented Quartet West, a group that he maintained alongside the Liberation Music Orchestra into the 2010s. Among his recordings with Quartet West was Sophisticated Ladies (2010), which featured female vocalists from jazz, classical, and assorted popular music traditions.

Haden received multiple Grammy Awards for his recordings. In 1997 his album Beyond the Missouri Sky, with Pat Metheny, won the award for best jazz instrumental performance. Haden’s Nocturne (2000) and Land of the Sun (2004) both won Grammys for best Latin jazz album. In addition, Haden received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2013.