Conversations with Charlie Haden

Book excerpt: Charlie Haden (19372014) was the rare sort of musician who transcended easy categorizationother than to say that his uniquely elegant and eloquent bass playing, with its readily recognizable sound, defined a certain pinnacle of musical communication in beautiful, spontaneous, and intensely emotional ways. Throughout his career, he worked with and influenced many of the most interesting musicians of the second half of the twentieth century, including Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, Carla Bley, Keith Jarrett, Billy Higgins, Paul Motion, Dewey Redman, Pat Metheny, Egberto Gismonti, Gavin Bryars, Geri Allen, Brad Mehldau, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and literally hundreds of others. In Conversations, Haden discusses his life and politics and music and aesthetics in a series of candid interviews conducted over two decades. While parts of this collection have appeared in various periodicals, much of it is in print here for the first time. Forewords by Bill Frisell and Alan Broadbent