ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702140086
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: MARY CAMPBELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
Janwillem Van de Wetering, author of mysteries, likes to throw in sentences to show he's hip. In his latest book, ``The Hollow-Eyed Angel,'' he has this one: ``Have a tape recorder play a Charlie Haden ballad whenever the elevator is activated.''
Not everybody has heard of jazz bassist Haden; the hip obviously have, and regard him highly. The Montreal Jazz Festival gave him an eight-night tribute in 1989. He played with different musicians each night; every concert was sold out.
The ``Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD'' begins its article about him by pronouncing simply, ``Haden is one of the great bass players.''
In January, Haden's Quartet West was nominated for a Grammy Award in the best jazz instrumental performance category for ``Now Is the Hour'' and Haden was nominated in the best jazz instrumental solo category for the CD's title track.
He has a new, laid-back album out this month, ``Beyond the Missouri Sky,'' with virtuoso guitarist Pat Metheny, who was best man at his 1989 wedding.
Haden started in show business at 22 months of age as Little Cowboy Charlie in the country-western Haden Family Band. They sang hillbilly music on the radio and made personal appearances in the Midwest.
``As each of us six kids was born, we joined,'' he says. ``I started singing with them when I was almost 2 and sang twice a day till I was 15. I loved it.
``Country music is very melodic and harmonious. Mom used to rock me to sleep humming and singing to me. My brothers and sisters would walk through the living room. They would hum the harmony with her. Before we knew it, I would hum harmony. I was 1 year old. They'd say, `I guess Charlie is going to go on the radio pretty quick.'''
At 19, he went from a small town in the Midwest to Los Angeles to play jazz. He was exhilarated when he heard Ornette Coleman improvising free jazz with his plastic saxophone at a Los Angeles club.
Haden met Coleman and went to New York in his quartet at 20. At 31 he formed the Liberation Music Orchestra to express solidarity with worldwide struggles against political repression. He has played duets with many musicians and now, at 59, heads the more traditional Quartet West.
``I'm always looking for a beautiful sound, every time I play,'' Haden says, ``whether I'm playing with Ornette or Pat or Ginger Baker, who I just recorded with. I try to bring as much beauty as I can to the music.''
The bassist thrives on variety and staying busy. After Baker, he recorded with blues harmonica player James Cotton, then jazz singer Helen Merrill and made a recording of a piece classical composer Gavin Bryars wrote for him and chamber orchestra.
Haden's first marriage ended in divorce. After his former wife and his son, now 28, and his triplet daughters, now 25, moved from New York to Los Angeles, he also moved, to be near his children.
He met Ruth Cameron, an actress, in 1984. They married in 1989. She suggested he put together a band. He did, after hearing pianist Alan Broadbent on his car radio, pulling off the freeway to find out who it was and phoning him. She named it Quartet West.
Ernie Watts plays saxophone and Larance Marable plays drums.
The quartet's first concert, in Santa Monica, was packed, and people said they should record. They did, for Verve, in 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1996. In 1990's ``Haunted Heart,'' Haden inserted excerpts from his huge record collection. He says, ``I always like to show people what inspires the music. After we play `Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye,' Jeri Southern comes in and sings it.
``We play `Haunted Heart,' a beautiful standard by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, and then I bring in the recording of Jo Stafford singing it in 1947. And `Deep Song,' we play that and I bring in Billie Holiday's 1948 record.''
But nostalgia, he says, ``can be a trap in a way. People think you're playing in the past. Because we make people think of beautiful memories doesn't mean we're not creating new music.''
Seven of the 12 tracks on the 1996 ``Now Is the Hour'' were recorded live with strings in Paris, and no old records were slotted in. ``A lush string section playing behind you can be very inspiring,'' Haden says. ``Almost everything you hear on the record is one take.''
Haden says he'll insert old recordings in quartet music again someday. ``I never heard anybody do it, until the rappers started sampling stuff. Nobody in jazz has done anything like it.''
But Haden had done it before. ``I superimposed music from the Spanish Civil War on the first Liberation Music Orchestra record. It was all political music, about Vietnam, `Song for Che,' which I wrote, and so forth.''
The ``All Music Guide to Jazz'' calls the album ``One of the few message-protest jazz vehicles that works on every level. It has brilliant compositions, arrangements, playing and lineup, plus passionate material.''
The orchestra made two more recordings, in 1982 and 1990 - ``whenever I felt the need,'' Haden says.
In 1994, Haden and pianist Hank Jones cut a duet record called ``Steal Away.'' The bassist says, ``I heard Hank play `Standing in the Need of Prayer' on a Smithsonian collection of jazz pianists. I called him and said, `Let's do some hymns and spirituals together.' He said, `Let's do it.' It's still selling. I knew the spirituals. My mom sang them. I'd never performed them.''
Although Haden has ringing in his ears and a supersensitivity to loud sounds, and takes a Plexiglas shield on the road to protect himself when he's playing, he would like for Quartet West to tour more. ``It's difficult unless you play jazz clubs,'' he says. ``We want to play concert halls where the acoustics and the sound system are great, chairs are comfortable and you don't hear the men's room door slamming between every solo. Pavarotti wouldn't sing in a jazz club.''
Sometimes Haden visits high schools in South Central Los Angeles, as a member of the advisory board of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. ``It's where the gangs are,'' he says. ``But it's unbelievable how many kids want to play music.
``Their role models are gang members. It's difficult for them to think about getting out of the ghetto. The kids involved in music, probably somebody encouraged them. I want to see that they keep getting encouragement and that people outside the school system will help them get scholarships to study. It is real important.''
Haden, who becomes increasingly earnest as he talks, started the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts in 1982. ``It was about discovering your voice on your instrument,'' he says. ``They have to be able to discover how to express the music that's inside their soul.
``Improvisation is about 85 percent spiritual, and the rest is learning about chords, scales, intervals. The technical part of music you can learn anywhere. The spiritual part is something not talked about very much. I think it's important to talk about that.
``You can learn so much from music about life and being a giving human being. I tell students, if you strive to be a good human being, then maybe you might have a chance to become a great musician.
``Jazz isn't a mass audience art because it's a deeper art form. You have to give yourself to it. Our job as jazz musicians is to touch people's lives in a meaningful way and bring them closer to the deeper part of themselves.''
LENGTH: Long : 138 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Jazz bassist Charlie Haden is seen in a Plexiglasby CNBreflection (left) as he rehearses during a sound check at the House
of Blues in West Hollywood, Calif., before a performance by his band
Quartet West. Haden, who suffers from tinnitus - ringing in the ears
- and hyperacusis - supersensitivity to loud sounds - has to play
concerts with a shield placed between himself and the drums, piano
and saxophone. This reduces the volume of sound for Haden. 2.
Haden's band was nominated for a Grammy Award in the best jazz
instrumental performance category for ``Now Is the Hour,'' and Haden
was nominated in the best jazz instrumental solo category for the
CD's title track.