Charlie Haden

Charlie Haden - The Montreal Tapes (2009) {6CD Box Set Verve 530 999-6 rec 1989}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.93 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 881 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 102 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1989, 2009 Verve Records / Universal Music France | 530 999-6
Jazz / Post Bop / Bass

This box set contains everything released on Verve of the mini-festival of Charlie Haden's music recorded at a Montreal jazz festival in 1989. The music is uniformly excellent, and well-recorded. If you are a Charlie Haden fan, you'll enjoy it. Recording live of Charlie Haden's concerts at the 1989 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Each disc was initially published individually by Verve between 1994 and 2005.

One of the outlets for bassist Charlie Haden's multifarious musical interests is the politically charged, progressive Liberation Music Orchestra. In July 1992, the Orchestra - a powerhouse of some of the top names in jazz - brought the collaborative sound of their album Dream Keeper to the Montreal International Jazz Festival. The African National Congress anthem, 'Nkosi Sikelel'I Afrika,' opens the program and sets the tone, with a blistering solo from the alto sax of Makanda Ken McIntyre and a more reflective one by tenor giant Joe Lovano.

A legendary album and rightfully so, Charlie Haden's 1969 protest piece, "Liberation Music Orchestra", is one of the essential pieces of music of his era. Assembling an extended cast of musicians to support the music with arrangements by the versatile Carla Bley, the music blends free jazz with folk traditions from the United States and Europe. Along the way, a series of fantastic individual performances underscore just how brilliant the record is.

This recording may be out of print but it's worth going out of your way to find. Zeitlin and Haden communicate beautifully throughout, with lyrical passages alternating with long, semi-abstract bass solos (particularly on the first cut, "Chairman Mao.") The recording is done live in front of a small audience, with excellent production values (somewhat reminiscent of Oscar Peterson's "Exclusively for My Friends" recordings for MPS in the sixties). Zeitlin is not very well known but has lately re-emerged as a very dynamic player in the Bill Evans/Fred Hersch/Mulgrew Miller tradition. (Source: Customer review at amazon.com)

It was on a Sunday, on September 19, 1993 to be exact, that Charlie Haden heard Brad Mehldau for the first time. Charlie and I were walking through the halls of the Hidden Valley Resort located in the Laurel Mountains in southwest Pennsylvania. The resort was sponsoring a jazz festival and Charlie had just finished an interview after which we needed to get back to the hotel room in order to prepare for Charlie’s sound-check and concert that night. As we hurried through the hall, one could hear, from behind the closed doors of the auditorium we passed, the sounds of a concert in progress.

Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra - Time/Life, Songs for the Whales and Other Beings (2016) {impulse! 0602547984807}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 296 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 129 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 137 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 impulse! / VRT / Universal | 0602547984807
Jazz / Experimental Big Band / Post-Bop / Modern Creative / Avant-Garde Jazz / Bass

In 2011, bassist Charlie Haden and pianist Carla Bley led an iteration of the Liberation Music Orchestra in a live concert at the Jazz Middelheim Festival in Antwerp, Belgium. It was partially intended as a warm-up for a forthcoming Liberation Music Orchestra album, a process that had been in the works since 2007. Sadly, Haden died from post-polio syndrome in 2014 before any new LMO tracks could be recorded. Thankfully, Haden, along with his wife, Ruth Cameron Haden, and Bley had discussed his desires for how to finish the album prior to his passing. Furthermore, the 2011 performance, which included two new arrangements earmarked for the planned album, had been recorded for Belgian public radio.