Tonight, music featuring the late bassist Charlie Haden.
| No better way to start than with material from the Ornette Coleman quartet, where Haden was the bassist along with Coleman on alto sax, Don Cherry on trumpet, and Billy Higgins (later Ed Blackwell) on drums. |
| Lonely Woman Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come - Atlantic |
| A couple of Haden compositions from the first Liberation Music Orchestra album, first as performed live with Ornette Coleman, and then a cut from the album itself. The Coleman recording features Ornette, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Haden, and Denardo Coleman (credited here as Ornette D. Coleman), and was recorded in 1969 and released in 1972. The Liberation Music Orchestra album feature's a who's who of musicians and was also recorded in 1969, seeing release the following year. |
| Song for Che Ornette Coleman - Crisis - Impulse! |
| El Quinto Regimiento Liberation Music Orchestra - Liberation Music Orchestra - Impulse! |
| The Liberation Music Orchestra marked a collaboration between Haden and pianist Carla Bley, who wrote or arranged much of the material on the first album (including El Quinto Regimiento; Song for Che is a Haden composition). Haden would naturally return the favour by appearing on Bley's "avant-garde jazz opera", or as they called it, "chronotransduction", entitled Escalator Over the Hill. While the album mixes a great many styles, the opening Hotel Overture is a tour-de-force of period jazz, with Haden's memorable contribution coming toward the very end. |
| Hotel Overture Carla Bley - Escalator Over the Hill - JCOA |
| To close, a track from Old and New Dreams, featuring Cherry, Redman, Blackwell, and Haden. This piece is composed by Haden. |
| Playing Old and New Dreams - Playing - ECM |
Subscribe to Rabble Without A Cause