Charlie Haden is truly a living legend of jazz. Born in Shenandoah, Iowa, he was still a toddler when he started singing on his family’s daily radio show in Missouri. In a recent interview for Time Out New York, Haden recalled, “I remember my mom rocking me to sleep. I wasn’t even two. She was humming, and I started humming the harmony. She said, ‘You’re ready for the radio show, babe.’ They started taking me to the station every morning. My mom would pick me up in her arms and hold me to the microphone so I could sing.” He continued singing with his family, surrounded by some of the biggest names in country music, until polio afflicted his vocal chords at age 15. Having been attracted to his brother’s upright bass a few years earlier, Charlie turned his full musical attention to the bass, turning to jazz after hearing Charlie Parker. Moving to Los Angeles in 1957, Haden played with Hampton Hawes, Art Pepper and Dexter Gordon. He became part of the iconic Ornette Coleman Quartet in 1959, appearing on The Shape of Jazz to Come, and went on to work with John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Pat Metheny, Dewey Redman and Keith Jarrett in the 1960s, and performed with Old and New Dreams. In 1969, he joined Carla Bley to form the first Liberation Music Orchestra, blending big band charts with the folkloric sounds of the Spanish Civil War. Over the years, Haden’s chops as an acoustic bassist have been sought by a long list of artists, including Hank Jones, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Paul Motian, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Brecker and Kenny Barron; with Pat Metheny he shared a 1997 “Best Jazz Instrumental Individual/Small Group” Grammy for Beyond the Missouri Sky. 

Haden’s eclecticism is apparent in his forays into world music—with Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Argentinean bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi, and Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes—as well as his varied approaches to American popular music, through his acclaimed Quartet West, as well as such projects as his alliance with Michael Brecker on American Dreams (2002). Invited to establish the jazz studies program at California Institute of the Arts in 1982, Haden has been awarded the Los Angeles Jazz Society prize for “Jazz Educator of the Year,” two Grammies, has topped multiple Down Beat Readers and Critics Polls, and has received a Guggenheim fellowship, four NEA grants for composition, France’s Grand Prix Du Disque (Charles Cros) Award, Japan’s Swing Journal Gold, Silver and Bronze awards, and the Montreal Jazz Festival’s Miles Davis Award. His brand new release, Rambling Boy, features Haden and his many musical family members and friends retracing his country roots. 

A native of Oakland, CA, composer/arranger/pianist/organist Carla Bley was last heard in the Twin Cities with her own band on the Ted Mann stage in 2003. Although encouraged to study piano as a child, Bley was more interested in roller skating in her teens and moved to New York where she worked as a cigarette girl, meeting her future husband, pianist Paul Bley, while working at Birdland. Although their marriage did not last, Paul encouraged Carla’s composing and her compositions were soon sought and recorded by musicians such as George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre. In the mid-60s she organized the Jazz Composers Guild and colead the Jazz Composers Orchestra and launched its record label. Her own magnum opus Escalator Over the Hill was released on the JCOA label. Later she spearheaded her own WATT label which continues to issue her works. Over the years she has arranged for Charlie Haden, Gary Burton, Federico Fellini and Hal Wilner, and has collaborated extensively with bassist Steve Swallow. Leading her own band, she has released numerous recordings as well as appearing with the LMO throughout its history. 
 

The Liberation Music Orchestra has endured a number of cast changes through the years but a constant has been Bley’s arrangements and thematic content of the compositions. Using a wide range of brass including tuba, French horn, trombones and the usual trumpets and saxophones, the orchestra has drawn on diverse music sources, from gospel to South African to Latin. And always political commentary—their 1982 release Ballad of the Fallen addressed the Spanish Civil War and the U.S. involvement in Latin America. The 1990 release Dream Keeper was a musical commentary on apartheid. Sometimes the political leanings did not go over well with the locals:  On a 1971 tour in Portugal, Haden dedicated a performance of “Song for Che” to the anticolonist revolutionaries of Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissou. The next day, the bassist was interrogated by the Portuguese secret Police (DGS) and was only released after intervention from the American cultural attaché and was later questioned by the FBI. The LMO was inactive for a while but reconvened in 2004 to record Not In Our Name, a statement against the international policies of the Bush Administration, and again are working together on a new project addressing the issues facing voters in the 2008 election.  

Historically, Haden and Bley have taken the left fork in the political road and there is no reason to expect a change in direction now! (Even if the concert is scheduled only a few weeks after the Republican Convention in St. Paul!)  
 

The Liberation Music Orchestra led by Charlie Haden with Carla Bley performs at Ted Mann Auditorium (2128 S. 4th Street, University of Minnesota West Bank Campus) in Minneapolis at 8 pm on Saturday, September 27th. . FFI and tickets, call 612-624-2345.