Charlie Haden On Bass and Beauty
I finished cataloging the music from the carry-on luggage. I started on October 7th, 2022. The last item was completed Oct. 24th. There were 164 pieces in all. 94 were Charlie Haden live concerts, three of these on cassette, the rest on CD-Rs. Six were videos of concerts on DVD-Rs. 16 were studio recordings on CD-Rs. Five were interviews on CD-Rs. Four CD-Rs contained photos of Charlie or of album projects. Two CD-Rs contained Pro-Tools files. One DVD-R was an award acceptance speech. One CD-R wouldn’t load. One jewel box was empty.
Charlie didn’t appear on 33 of the discs. A few of these were demos of my band Spain, including rough mixes of “You And I”, from 2014’s Sargent Place, the last studio recording he made before he died. Some were tracks I’d recommended. Some were artists who wanted to play with him. Some contained songs he liked, or examples he was considering for future projects. There were three CD-Rs of a tribute show made after his death, and four DVDs, two from a tribute in 2013 and two of the 2015 memorial in NYC.
These audio and video documents spanned his entire life, from his earliest radio performances as two year-old yodeling Cowboy Charlie to a rehearsal tape of tunes that were eventually released as Keith Jarrett/Charlie Haden’s Jasmine (2010) and Last Dance (2014). The early Haden Family cuts were accompanied by hand-written descriptive letters from Charlie’s oldest brother, Carl Haden, Jr. There were other paper items in the suitcase as well. A table card from Catalina Jazz Club in Los Angeles. Production notes for the 2010 Quartet West album Sophisticated Ladies. A letter from a jazz festival organizer. An empty Christmas card envelope from me.
Some of the live CD-Rs have already been released commercially. A few have been bootlegged. The majority I’d never seen or heard before. There was even a recording of the Haden Family made before my father’s birth.
This cache is just the beginning. I have multiple boxes of live CDs, DVDs and cassettes that I haven’t started looking through yet
Today’s podcast is from one of the interview CD-Rs. It was produced in 2009 by Australia’s ABC Radio. My dad talks about his family roots playing country songs on the radio. He talks about his political activism and his belief that music can change people and the world for the better. Guitarist Pat Metheny, a longtime friend, makes very insightful comments. Some of the stories Charlie tells I’ve heard before, but some, like the way he convinced executives in charge of impulse! records to release the first Liberation Music Orchestra LP, were new to me. It’s a very good introduction to the art and philosophy of my father.
I’ve taken the liberty of making some edits of the audio for length, clarity, and the context of my project.
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