"How to Listen to Jazz" by Ted Gioia - The Economist Review

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

How to Listen to Jazz.

By Ted Gioia.

Basic Books; 272 pages;

$24.99 and £16.99

The following review of Ted Gioia’s new book How to Listen to Jazz appeared The Economist, April 23rd - 29th, 2016 edition and the editorial staff at JazzProfiles thought it would share it with you while it worked on its own review of Ted’s latest effort on behalf of Jazz.

How to distinguish good jazz from bad.

“JAZZ is not a popular art-form. To its many detractors, it amounts to little more than pretentious noodling, based as it is largely on improvisation. To others, it is simply mystifying. How can an entire genre be made up of playing, again and again, variants of show tunes that were mostly composed in the 1930's and 1940's?

Ted Gioia understands why people find jazz so esoteric. The problem, as he sees it, is that no one has ever bothered to explain what "good" or "bad" jazz really is. Critics hold strong opinions on whether Charlie Parker or John Coltrane is the better saxophonist, but rarely do they explain "what they [are] listening for". Mr Gioia's job is to teach jazz-lovers how to assess the music and persuade sceptics to give jazz a go.

Mr Gioia has produced a fascinating book. He takes the reader through the most important ingredients of jazz, explaining, for instance, how "swing" is more than syncopated, finger-tapping rhythm. A bass-player and drummer who sound comfortable in each other's company is one sure sign of swing. (Listen to Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison, playing with Coltrane, for instance.) Unlike amateur outfits that feel the need to overplay, the best groups can swing without playing many notes. In Keith Jarrett's trio, the pianist goes for long stretches without even using his left hand, but the listener barely notices until it reappears, upon which it makes the music sound even richer.

Most useful to the uninitiated, the book provides tips on what good improvisation really means. Bad players tend to rely heavily on a small number of rhythmic and harmonic patterns in their phrases-licks containing a certain number of notes, for instance, or a tendency to begin or end their phrases at a certain place in the bar. Listen to such an improviser for more than a minute or so, and "even novice listeners will perceive an inescapable monotony," says Mr Gioia. The best players, including Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis (pictured), never fall into such traps, however.

In his enthusiasm, Mr Gioia's analysis of improvisation sometimes veers into abstraction. Take his discussion of what he calls "intentionality", which he says is another crucial element of good soloing. He defines this as "a musical phrase that reveals the total commitment of the improviser" -hardly an illuminating description. Yet read the book within easy access of a music-streaming service or YouTube, and Mr Gioia's commentary suddenly feels much more useful. A middling trumpeter (say, one in a student band) appears to struggle against the music, and will finish a phrase upon running out of breath. Davis's phrases on the trumpet, by contrast, have a clear beginning, middle and end. No note is wasted and the accompanists seem to work around him. (For an excellent example of this, see his opening solo in "Spanish Key", recorded in 1969.)

Mr Gioia also delves into musical theory, in a way that will help both jazz neophytes and experts understand what they are listening to. The best jazz musicians do not worry much about producing clearly defined notes (the do-re-mi system that structures Western classical music). Instead they look to make particular sounds -bending notes and creating unusual timbres-which is a consequence of the heavy African influence on jazz. The emphasis on sound over notes is especially pronounced in Coltrane's late work.

Alongside the tips for listening, Mr Gioia's book gives a helpful overview of how jazz has evolved since its beginnings in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Buddy Bolden, a cornet-player in the Big Easy of whose music there are no recordings, is credited by many with inventing "jass". Like the rest of the book, the majority of this discussion focuses on long-dead musicians (many of whom met untimely ends thanks to debilitating drug habits). As if to compensate for the book's backward-looking bias, at the end the author lists 150 contemporary jazzists "who deserve your attention".

How to Listen to Jazz is not a long book, but it emphasises a beautiful point about the genre, a point that applies to no other sort of music. When you see a live performance, you may be watching a 60-year-old musician playing a loo-year-old piece; but what is produced on stage has never been, and will never be, played again. Jazz is undoubtedly struggling, but as an introduction to why its remaining fans are so devoted, Mr Gioia could not have done a better job. Through him, jazz might even find new devotees.”

Hector Martignon's Banda Grande - "The Big Band Theory" (Zoho ZM 201605)

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

On this ambitious third release after two GRAMMY nominated ZOHO CDs Refugee (2007) and Second Chance (2012), Colombian-born but Harlem, NY domiciled pianist Hector Martignon introduces his "Banda Grande" in daring, visionary arrangements quoting Classical composers (Bach, Mozart) over iconic Jazz and Brazilian songwriters (Bill Evans, Hermeto Pascoal) to six colorful, virtuosic Martignon originals.

The structure of Hector’s Banda Grande goes well beyond the usual, brass, reeds and rhythm: well beyond both in terms of the number of instruments that make up the traditional big band framework - in this case 5 trumpets, 5 trombones and 6 saxes [instead of the usual 4/4/5 set-up] - and well beyond in terms of instruments that are only rarely heard in conjunction with a Jazz big band such as vibraphone [Terry Gibbs, notwithstanding], accordion, Colombian harp and Colombian flute. Oh and did I mention the inclusion of a string quartet!

In the following insert notes to the CD, Hector references the use of musical colors in the arrangements that help bring big band compositions to life. What with all of the additional sonorities made available to him by the increased number of horns and the unusual instrumentation, suffice to say that what he “paints” [orchestrates] has textures that really “Pop!”

Hector’s grand band makes music that is just that - Grand. The music reflects a wide range of influences that come together to create themes that are as interesting as they are complex. Hector’s music is given additional heft and dimension by the skillful soloists who improvise on it. And not only are the soloists competent, they are creative in that they move your ears in new directions. On a number of occasions, I found myself reflecting on the “sound of surprise” that came from a soloist playing phrases, licks and lines that I had not heard before.

Hector’s band is based in New York, and given the quality of the musicianship that predominates in The Big Apple, that may account for why his music is so skillfully rendered.

But the other big reason is Hector skills as a composer-arranger and as a band leader. He is a major talent whose music will give you many hours of intellectual and emotional satisfaction. You can find out more about him and order information for his CD’s at www.hectormartignon.wordpress.com. The label website is www.zohomusic.com.

Here’s how he explains it in the insert notes to The Big Band Theory (Zoho ZM 201605).

Should you be insane enough to want to start a Big Band.... do it in New York! A difficult stage to climb up to and scream; cold and cruel at times but then burning hot and loving, the Big Apple gives you all you need and more... the finest musicians with great attitude, plenty of venues, great audiences, good and affordable studios. In return, you give back what you try to be best at... your music.

It was at that veteran of all venerable old Manhattan venues, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the Lower East Side, where my flirts with the Big Band format became a love affair, with all its challenges and intricacies. Starting off as an experimental workshop, with personnel, compositions and arrangements varying every week, some suitable for the dance needs of the crowd and some suitable for a full concert, Hector Martignon's Bandagrande slowly but surely came of age.

Any composer dreams to write for a large ensemble, be it a large choir, a Symphonic Orchestra or its Jazz version, the Big Band which offers similar resources of color and dynamics, even though smaller in numbers. With close to twenty individual instruments (and their doubles) the arranger takes over from the composer and gradually starts creating like a painter, thinking in terms of color, balances, shade, light and, well... a concept borrowed from music by the visual arts... composition.

Given such a range of possibilities, it was only natural to encompass as wide as possible a spectrum of music styles and idioms, from the Baroque sinfonia concertante, visiting the inquiring language of the sixties' and seventies' Jazz, to the Brazilian eccentricities of a Hermeto Pascoal, adding, of course, my own honest attempts at composing and arranging.

Because of budgetary and space issues we were forced to divide the recording into four sessions, each of which left (almost) untouched: 1. rhythm section plus some soloists, 2. horns, 3. strings and 4. some solo overdubs.

Before it became one more extension of a "Disneylandic" Times Square and its mass tourism, there were few neighborhoods as diverse, exciting and gastronomically enticing as Hell's Kitchen (West Side Manhattan, between 39th and 57th Streets; recently re-baptized Clinton Hills for real estate sales purposes). Hell's Kitchen Sarabande tries to re-capture the strangely alluring decay of the 90s in an atemporal albeit magically floating 3/2 Sarabande metric.

Staying within a geographic-biographic context, 99 Macdougal Street gives you a glimpse of the year I survived in the famed Village street that could be compared with New Orleans' Bourbon Street, if with less music and more smells. I wrote the tune when I was playing with Ray Barretto's New World Spirit.

Although belonging to the staple Bossa repertoire, Estate is a masterpiece by the great Bruno Martino, one of the engines behind the Italian musical Boom of the sixties.

During my studies in Germany, I used to love the "Weihnachtsmarkt", the Christmas Markets in the main squares or near most train stations, musically underscored by the Posaunenchor, small groups of 4-6 trombones playing Christmas songs and chorales, the inspiration behind Trombone Chorale. My song reminisces the hectic human rivers boarding and leaving the trains, with the incongruent Christmas music playing in the background.

Staying in the theme, Erbarme Dich is another "standard" of European sacred music, this time one of the most haunting Arias (No. 47) out of the St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach. I kept Bach's original string orchestration almost intact while adding the full Big Band sonority in the instrumental sections, alternating with the beautiful Alto rendition by Brenda Feliciano. The original solo violin melodic counterpoint is masterfully performed by trumpet virtuoso Joe Burgstaller with plenty of freedom and acrobatic improvisation, recorded "live" with the Rhythm section.

One of my favorite compositions by one of my favorite Jazz pianists is Interplay, an incredibly elegant though playful Blues that only a Bill Evans could compose.

Nostalgias del Future is the first movement of a "Concerto for Harp and Orchestra" I wrote for my fellow Colombian and harp virtuoso Edmar Castaneda. The main body develops in a 18/8 variation of the Venezuelan/Colombian rhythm Joropo (usually in 6/8). Besides Edmar other typical Joropo instruments like the Quatro (a small 4 stringed-guitar) are masterfully performed by Venezuelan maestro Jorge Glem, the capachos (small maracas) by my countryman Samuel Torres (right channel) and Venezuelan Roberto Quintero (left channel) who also plays the recently adopted cajon.

Maestra was the first piece I wrote and performed for this format, with the Bogota Big Band back in 2010. It gave me an extra motivation to start this project. In this rendition I added Martin Vejarano on the indigenous Gaita (a sort of flute with reeds) the maracon (a huge maraca played simultaneously by the "gaitero") and the big tambora (an improvising bass drum), to re-create a magically beautiful real-life Cumbia, far removed from the reviled commercial Cumbia of such bad reputation! The tune is dedicated to all the teachers of this world, particularly those in rural areas of third world countries.

In some of our big concerts, a Mozart string quartet opens the program, only to be gradually overpowered by a cacophony delivered by the horn section of the Big Band, marching in from all sides of the hall. Mozart Interrupted / Sorrindo reflects this situation, relinquishing the stage to a composition by Brazilian genius Hermeto Pascoal, Sorrindo (Smiling). I respectfully added a (non-existent) solo section, interluding the solos with a horn "background" made up from other Pascoal classics.

The Fruit Vendor's Last Dream is dedicated to the fruit vendor who immolated himself on January 4, 2011. He protested against the corruption and abuse of power exercised by the authorities in Tunisia, what eventually gave rise to the "Arab Spring". Whatever became of that movement in the whole region, that act of self-sacrifice will always be remembered as the triumph of dignity over arbitrariness.

John Benitez' bass solo is just unbelievable, as is his spontaneous "wow!" which I kept at the end of the piece, in this case also the end of this album. I hope you will enjoy…”

--Hector Martignon

The following video with give you a small sampling of Martignon Music in the form of his take on Interplay, “Bill Evans’... elegantly playful Blues.”

The Jazz of Physics

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Science benefits from the same kind of leaps of intuition that a sax player makes when soloing.”

“Deep down, the book feels like an attempt by Dr. Alexander to understand how his passions for physics and jazz can coexist so intensely. It also makes clear that thinking deeply about music has helped him to think freely — and led him to some of his best academic research. But the connection is above all personal.”

- Dan Tepfer, The New York Times

“More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane had put physics and geometry at the core of his music. Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander returns the favor, using jazz to answer physics’ most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe.

Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics—a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim—The Jazz of Physics revisits the ancient realm where music, physics, and the cosmos were one. This cosmological journey accompanies Alexander’s own tale of struggling to reconcile his passion for music and physics, from taking music lessons as a boy in the Bronx to studying theoretical physics at Imperial College, London’s inner sanctum of string theory. Playing the saxophone and improvising with equations, Alexander uncovered the connection between the fundamental waves that make up sound and the fundamental waves that make up everything else. As he reveals, the ancient poetic idea of the “music of the spheres,” taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics.

Whether you are more familiar with Brian Greene or Brian Eno, John Coltrane or John Wheeler, the Five Percent Nation or why the universe is less than five percent visible, there is a new discovery on every page. Covering the entire history of the universe from its birth to its fate, its structure on the smallest and largest scales, The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.”

- Annotation from BarnesandNoble.com

The following review of Stephon Alexander’s THE JAZZ OF PHYSICS [Basic, 254 pages, $27.50] is by Peter Pesic and it appeared in the May 6th [2016] edition of The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Pesic is the director of the Science Institute and musician-in-residence, St. John’s College, Santa Fe. He is the author of Music and the Making of Modern Science.

The love affair between music and science began in an ancient Greek blacksmith shop, where the legendary Pythagoras did the first experiments connecting ratios and sounds, such as the lengths of plucked strings and their pitches. The strange and wonderful connection between numbers and music has continued to be the subject of fascinated study to this day. (I wrote an entire book on it.) In The Jazz of Physics, Brown University physicist Stephon Alexander explores the analogies between jazz and scientific inquiry, especially its improvisational, free-form side.

Though relatively young, Mr. Alexander has structured The Jazz of Physics as an autobiography in stories, episodes from his life reflecting the music, ideas and people important to him. His trajectory makes one reflect on the aspiration of science to reach past the all-too-human contingencies of birth, race, sex and nationality. His Trinidadian grandmother made him practice Mozart, though he was “more interested in how music worked than learning to play others’ compositions.” He turned to hip-hop about the same time that he encountered the figure of Einstein: “I sensed I was like him, and not just because my curly Afro resembled his wild locks, but because I saw a loner who liked to play with symbols and ideas the way I liked to play with musical notes on paper to make my own songs and try to answer my own questions.”

Throughout his book, Mr. Alexander moves back and forth between the worlds of music (he became an accomplished sax player) and science. He keeps coming back to Einstein and to John Coltrane, whose complex musical diagrams he interprets with the same seriousness and excitement that he finds in equations. Coltrane, he notes, was fascinated by Einstein, who also played the piano. Coltrane’s playing and theories in turn deeply inspired Mr. Alexander. Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” haunts the book, as its young protagonist seeks to take his own steps in the worlds of music and physics. More familiar with the older milieu of physicists steeped in Beethoven, I was struck by how many of Mr. Alexander’s mentors were jazz buffs, feeling at home with improvisation and urging him to take similar leaps of intuition in his research. The mathematical physicist Christopher Isham told him to “stop reading those physics books. You need to develop your unconscious mind; that’s the wellspring of a great theoretical physicist.”

Mr. Alexander moved through a number of different scientific fields, including neuroscience and biophysics, before arriving at the work in theoretical cosmology for which he has become known. He gives an engaging account of his uncertainties and worries as he made his way in the highly competitive world of theoretical physics, seeking to acquire the “chops” needed to deal with the formidable mathematics of his day job along with those needed to solo on the sax after dark. Along the way, he describes his encounters with such jazz and rock greats as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins and Brian Eno, as well as eminent physicists like Leon Cooper, William Unruh and Gerald Guralnik.

The counsel to improvise physics seems to have helped Mr. Alexander make his own mark on the field. A crucial physics insight came “as I was soloing with the equation of D-branes” — infinitesimal vibrating membranes envisioned by some versions of string theory — “on a piece of napkin, with jazz in the background . . . and a happy thought came to me: What if colliding D-branes could ignite the big bang?” After a few glasses of wine with another theorist, he was inspired: “In an ecstatic frenzy, I improvised my calculations, with a certainty that the equations would work out”; after a few months of work, he showed his work to his colleague, who said: “You nailed it!”

Mr. Alexander’s rhapsodic excitement is infectious but leaves one wondering how far a neat idea in physics can be compared to a dazzling riff. Human listeners may judge music to be beautiful, yet nature may remain unmoved by a very cool theory. Mr. Alexander is an ardent Pythagorean, a believer in the power of music and number to illuminate and even change the world. He points to Kepler and Einstein as exemplary practitioners of that visionary musical quest for the laws of nature, and he sees much promise in ideas about cosmology he considers guided by music.

For instance, he describes the way primordial sound waves shaped the early universe toward the galaxies and structures we now see. Music also provides him with analogies of harmony and structure that he finds useful in his own work.

Though he acknowledges that a theory “has to measure up to the truth,” Mr. Alexander is more interested in its beauty. He seems less concerned with the inevitable struggle to find experimental confirmation that dooms many attractive theories. Pythagoras, after all, found his truth in a smithy, not just in speculation.

Like the ancient original, I suspect a modern Pythagoras would be an improviser and innovator rather than a flawless executant of the old music. Too many classical musicians merely play the notes given to them without feeling the need to improvise and create them anew. Jazz requires the improvisational imagination of a composer, especially active curiosity and engagement with harmony (such as Coltrane’s charts display). Perhaps Mr. Alexander and his colleagues have found in jazz an inspiration that will help them sing a science that nature never heard before.

After reading Mr. Alexander’s account of primordial sound waves shaping the universe, I wonder how he felt when the gravitational waves from the collision of two distant black holes recently caused detectors in Washington and Louisiana to tremble in sympathetic vibration, swooping audibly from the deepest bass up to middle C. What would Coltrane have made of those black holes jamming in C?”

Charlie Haden: The Ineffable Beauty of the Jazz Bass [From the Archives]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Charlie Haden has a large, warm tone, the subtle vibrato, richness, and manipulations of which are central elements in his improvisational vocabulary."

- Mark Gridley, The New Grove Encyclopedia of Jazz

“Charlie Haden once said “One of the prerequisites in musical improvisation is ‘knowing how to listen.’

I first heard Charlie Haden when he was playing with Ornette Coleman in 1959. Playing with Ornette required extraordinary resourcefulness, resilience and a quality of inner musicianship that could not be thrown off balance. Since then, Haden has worked with a wide range of challenging leaders and has headed his own distinctively original ensembles - notably his Liberation Music Orchestra.

He is an accompanist who truly supports - rather than trying to dominate - the soloist. And as a soloist, he too "sings." His solos tell a story rather than show how many notes he can play.

In a music that is composed of individualists, Charlie Haden has always been unafraid to listen ahead - and to listen as deeply as he can, to himself. And that is why - to use a phrase of Duke Ellington’s - Charlie Haden is ‘Beyond category.’”

- Nat Hentoff, Jazz author and critic

For the quiet man he was and the quiet instrument he played, Charlie Haden left a huge and lasting sonic imprint on the landscape of Jazz for over fifty years.

He seemingly worked with everyone, because every Jazz musician who heard his playing wanted to work with him. He left behind an incredible legacy of recorded music as a testimony to how much he and his playing were universally adored.

Charlie Haden’s name became almost synonymous with the natural beauty of the Jazz bass. Mention Charlie Haden’s name to a Jazz musician anywhere in the world and a smiling look of recognition would immediately form on the face of that person. No words, just a smile - and sometimes a nod.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1956 from Springfield, Missouri [he was born in Shenandoah, Iowa in 1937] to attend the Westlake College of Music, he worked around town with Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper and Hampton Hawes.

While giging at the Hillcrest Club in Hollywood, CA in 1958 with vibraphonist Dave Pike, pianist Paul Bley and drummer Lenny McBrowne, McBrowne introduced him to Ornette Coleman and that music changed Charlie Haden’s musical life forever.

“Ornette invited me over to his pad and started playing music that I'd never heard in my life.

"It was very exciting to me. There was a feeling there that I was sure was very, very valid. I was startled by his music because he wasn't playing on the chord changes—and in 1958, everyone was still doing that. To play with Ornette, you really had to listen to everything he did because he was playing off the feeling."

Haden played a crucial role on the seminal Coleman albums The Shape Of Jazz To Come (1959), Change Of The Century (1960), This Is Our Music (1961) and Free Jazz (1961), all recorded for Atlantic. He traveled to New York City to play a famous extended engagement at the Five Spot Cafe with Coleman.

In addition to his influential work with Coleman—whose quartet also included trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Ed Blackwell—Haden collaborated with a number of jazz giants throughout the '60s and '70s, including John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Billy Higgins, Chet Baker and Joe Henderson. He was a member of Keith Jarrett's trio as well as the pianist's American Quartet with drummer Paul Motian and tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman from 1967-77.

In 1969, Haden commissioned pianist-composer Carla Bley to arrange music for a large cast of improvisers he called the Liberation Music Orchestra.

In 1976, Haden formed Old And New Dreams with Redman, Cherry and Blackwell to perpetuate Coleman's music as well as their own original material. The group was active until 1987.

In 1986, he formed Quartet West with saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Larance Marable (later replaced by Rodney Green). The group continued to perform until 2013.

Haden befriended Pat Metheny and played on the guitarist's double album 80/81 (ECM). The two collaborated frequently over the years, and both appeared on Coleman and Metheny's acclaimed 1986 album Song X and subsequent tour.

Haden can be heard on various live and recorded projects throughout the 1990s and 2000s with the likes of guitarists Metheny, John Scofield, Bill Frisell and John McLaughlin; drummers Ginger Baker and Jack DeJohnette; saxophonists Michael Brecker, Joe Lovano and Ravi Coltrane; trumpeter Tom Harrell; and vocalist-pianist Shirley Horn. He earned a reputation for performing intimate duo recordings and participating in small-group collaborations with such pianists as Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, Jarrett and Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

Haden's experience and influence reached far beyond the jazz realm. He was outspoken regarding the universality of his diverse musical associations, which included projects with pop artists Rickie Lee Jones and Ringo Starr, blues harmonicist-vocalist James Cotton, Brazilian guitarist Egberto Gismonti, Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes, Argentinian bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi and classical composer Gavin Bryars.

In 2008, Haden brought his personal history full circle to record Rambling Boy (Decca), which connected the music of his childhood to his present family, which includes his wife, vocalist Ruth Cameron; triplet daughters Petra, Rachel and Tanya; son Josh; and son-in-law Jack Black. The following year, Swiss film director Reto Caduff released a Rambling Boy documentary about Haden's life that was a major hit at jazz festivals and on the international film festival circuit.

Haden's most recent album releases include 2010's Jasmine (ECM), a duet with Keith Jarrett; 2011's Sophisticated Ladies (Emarcy/Decca) with Quartet West, strings and several contemporary vocalists; 2011's Live At Birdland (ECM) with saxophonist Lee Konitz, Mehldau and Motian; and 2014's Last Dance (ECM) with Jarrett. (See sidebar on page 34 written by Jarrett.)

The reactivated Impulse! label recently release a live album that was recorded during a duo performance by Haden and guitarist Jim Hall at the 1990 Montreal Jazz Festival.

Haden won multiple Grammys—one for his 1997 duet recording with Metheny, Beyond The Missouri Sky; another for his 2001 CD Nocturne, which included boleros from Cuba and Mexico and featured Cuban pianist Gonzolo Rubalcaba; and a third for his 2004 CD Land Of The Sun, which explored the works of Mexican composer Jose Sabre Marroquin with arrangements by Rubalcaba.

Among his crowning achievements were a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and a 2012 NEA Jazz Master Award. A longtime critical favorite, he was named New Star Bassist in DownBeat's 1961 Critics Poll and was elected to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in August 2013.

Upon receiving the news of his Hall of Fame induction last year, Haden expressed gratitude and elation to Ed Enright of the Institute for Jazz Studies and Downbeat.

"You know, for a while there I wasn't getting very much recognition," he said. "And I was thinking, I'm doing all of these different things, all these different kinds of music, Brazil and Portugal and Argentina and hillbilly music with my daughters, and doing all this different stuff that I don't think any other jazz people do. I thought maybe it was my political leanings that were keeping me from getting recognition. So all of these recent awards and honors have really made me feel good. I have a lot to be thankful for. And I want to make sure I give back to everybody."   

                        

Charlie Haden inspired legions of musicians who were fortunate enough to work with him, as well as those who received his encouragement: His colleagues attest to his quiet leadership, determination and love of a strong melody.

Pianist Carla Bley met Haden in the mid-1950s when he came out to live in Los Angeles. They worked together frequently, especially in the Liberation Music Orchestra.

"I was already in Los Angeles with Paul Bley, and Paul, being a connoisseur of bass players, immediately scooped him up," Carla recalled. "He had a very interesting and exquisite taste in all things. It wasn't just music. Although we agreed on a lot of music—he had certain chords, notes and composers. He'd get infatuated over furniture, and have to get the money to buy that piece of furniture. I couldn't see what he saw but I trusted that it indeed must have been beautiful. He had this sense of taste, very sure of himself at a young age.

"The way he played, he had an instantly recognizable style," Carla added. "He felt that way about the notes he played: This is the right note and no other note will do.' And he always called himself 'Whole Note Haden'; he played really slow and the notes were perfect and in the perfect place. He would play notes that weren't in the chord changes, but were so perfect that you waited for the chord change, and when the correct note came in, it was more thrilling than if it had been offered."

Haden formed Quartet West in the 1980s and its members included saxophonist Ernie Watts, who worked in the group for 25 years.

"Charlie had a beautiful, deep singing sound," Watts said. "It was very, very warm and very, very even all over the instrument. Besides that, he had so much harmonic knowledge and so much melodic knowledge from the years he was playing. He really was in touch with how things work with duration of time. A lot of times you don't count a bar — you feel the duration of time that it takes four bars to go by and he had a beautiful, intuitive nature of duration of time, in phrasing. When he played within a pattern or within a phrase, his time was totally on in a horizontal way rather than a vertical way.

"What made him a great leader is that he let everybody be who they were," Watts added. "We just all understood each other, understood the music and all loved each other and knew each other as people."

Along with Haden's groups, he also worked in duets throughout the 1990s, including with pianist Kenny Barron on such recordings as Night And The City (Verve, 1996).

"One of the things I loved about Charlie's playing, in addition to the sound, is he left a lot of space," Barron said. "And his playing was deceptively simple. With the bottom, it was just perfect. There was room for you to breathe, and there was interaction, too. It was a challenge: There was a lot for a pianist to do. You had a lot of space to fill, but that's a good thing. You had to learn how to not put too much in there. Not to fill it up, but using it. Charlie played just the right notes. I often say that he played 'b-a-s-e'; he really supplied the bottom, which made my stuff work."

After Haden's death, a more recent colleague, pianist Brad Mehldau, wrote:

"An untouchable, eternal hipness. A feeling of dance, with an element of danger. Sometimes, something like a polished diamond, precious to behold, unbreakable. Other times, just as remarkable: something like a sand sculpture or mandala—a beauty that is breaking apart and blowing away, disappearing even as you witness it.”

Another recent partner, saxophonist Joshua Redman, mentioned on his Facebook page, "Charlie had the biggest ears. He heard everything. He was right there with you every step of the way. And he took what he heard and helped you try to make something lovely out of it."

Bassist Ben Allison had been listening to Haden's music since he was a teenager and the elder bassist's "Sandino" inspired his own composition "Hey Man."  The two bassists encountered each other periodically on the festival circuit.

“As much as he’s a bass player, and the bassist’s role is to play the root of the chord—and he did—I felt his mind work throughout the harmonies in a way where he is not just consigned to playing root notes,” Allison said. "He was thinking of freely harmonizing whatever the soloist was doing. In Ornette [Coleman's] band, Ornette would spin out a melodic line and it would sound like Charlie would hear what Ornette was playing and find a note that would fit well with it. Charlie would have a deep tonality that wasn't necessarily tied to predetermined harmonies,

but was just the way he thought."

Pianist Keith Jarrett observed of his close friend and frequent band mate:

“People will always love his playing, but no one will ever imitate him. He was a rare, true original. Perfect intonation, the biggest ears, the warmest most captivating tone in the history of Jazz bass; and always musical. And I never had a better partner on a project for his honest input and deep understanding of our intentions in choosing the tracks for Jasmine and Last Dance. …  Charlie wrapped himself around the bass while he played it; inhabited it; made love to it. The bass really became the bass again in his hands.”

Charlie Haden died on July 11, 2014. He was seventy-six years old [76].