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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to show how Charlie Haden’s solo improvisation on “Irene” is a manifestation of his spiritual beliefs. My interpretive analysis demonstrates that he took advantage of the unaccompanied setting to create an improvisation complete with a detailed, solidly conceived structure that was improvised in the moment. This solo has also become a perfect representation of what Haden was striving for musically, a search for his own distinctively American improvisational language, that blends his background in country/hillbilly music and his identity as a bassist in an African American-based art form jazz, and finding a common space in the blues. This article also explores how his spiritual beliefs manifest themselves in every aspect of his musicality including his technique, his equipment, and his sound.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Matthias Heyman, Vic Hobson, Adam Booker, Ken Prouty and Carl Clements.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Fumi Tomita, bassist, composer, and educator, was active in the New York jazz scene for over 15 years. His newest recording, “The Elephant Vanishes: Jazz Interpretations of the Short Stories of Haruki Murakami” was released on Origin Arts records in April 2019. That same month also saw the release of his book “The Jazz Rhythm Section” published by NAfME in conjunction with Rowman & Littlefield. He is currently the Assistant Professor of Jazz at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Notes
* This paper is a version of the one that I delivered at the 2016 BassEurope conference in Prague.
1 Liner notes to As Long As There’s Music, Charlie Haden & Hampton Hawes, Artists House 4, vinyl record, 1978.
2 When Haden was singing in his family band, the music was then referred to as “hillbilly music,” “mountain music” or “folk music.” Though it eventually evolved into being known as either bluegrass and/or country music, I use the large umbrella term “country music” in my descriptions.
3 For example, see Nathan D. Morrison, “Jazz a Religious Experience: A Study of John Coltrane’s Music and Improvising Spirituality” (PhD diss., Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, 2003); Franya J. Berkman, “Appropriating Universality: The Coltranes and the 1960s Spirituality,” American Studies 48, no.1 (Spring 2007): 41–62; and Leonard L. Brown, ed., John Coltrane and Black America’s Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
4 Paul F. Berliner, Thinking in Jazz (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 29.
5 Ibid., 255.
6 Ed Sarath, Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: Jazz as Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013), 2.
7 Kimberly Rae Connor, “Improvising on the Feeling: Charlie Haden,” in Imagining Grace: Liberating Theologies in the Slave Narrative Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000).
8 Ibid., 253.
9 Jim Roberts, “Charlie Haden,” JazzTimes, July/August 1991, 47.
10 Connor, “Improvising on the Feeling,” 247.
11 Josef Woodward and Charlie Haden, Conversation with Charlie Haden (Los Angeles, CA: Silman-James Press, 2016), 136–7.
12 Connor, “Improvising on the Feeling,”256.
13 Woodward and Haden, Conversation with Charlie Haden, 137.
14 Ibid., 74.
15 Ibid., 136.
16 Ibid., 127.
17 Connor, “Improvising on the Feeling,” 246.
18 Ernest D. Brown Jr., “African American Instrument Construction and Music Making,” in African American Music, ed. Mellonee V. Burnim and Portia K. Maultsby, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 23.
19 Ibid., 23.
20 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFjmWI-d6d4 (accessed January 29, 2018) (from 2:52).
21 Liner notes to Hampton Hawes at the Piano, Hampton Hawes, Contemporary Records S7637, 1977, LP.
22 For a brief history of double bass gut strings see Jim Roberts, How the Fender Bass Changed the World (San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books, 2001), 89–90.
23 Arnold Jay Smith, “Bass Lines,” Downbeat, January 27, 1977, 15.
24 Information on string and acoustic bass technology is relatively scant. Online forums and string company websites provide some of the information related here: https://www.stringsbymail.com/blog/?p=1369 and http://www.smithbassforums.com/showthread.php?t=867.
25 Smith, “Bass Lines,” 15.
26 Roberts, “Charlie Haden,” 45.
27 Ibid.
28 The use of un-amplified acoustic bass was also featured in some ECM recordings during the 1970s and would feature prominently in the neo-classical era of the 1980s when younger bassists would record with a microphone rather than through their amplifier.
29 Hampton Hawes with Don Asher, Raise Up Off Me (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1974), 147.
30 Zabor, Rafi, “Charlie Haden,” in The Jazz Musician, ed, Mark Rowland and Tony Scherman (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 87.
31 Jocelyn R. Neal, “Rogers, Jimmie,” Grove Music Online, ed. Deane Root, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com (accessed January 29, 2018). Thanks to Steve Waksman and Jason Robinson for these tips.
32 Connor, “Improvising on the Feeling,” 255.
33 Rafi Zabor, “Charlie Haden,” in The Jazz Musician, ed. Mark Rowland and Tony Scherman (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 76–7.
34 For example, Magico, Charlie Haden/Jan Garbarek/Egberto Gismonti, ECM 1151, 1980, CD; Folk Songs, Charlie Haden/Jan Garbarek/Egberto Gismonti ECM 1170, 1981, CD; Gitane, Charlie Haden/Christian Escoude, Disques Dreyfus 849226-2, CD, 1979; Land of the Sun, Charlie Haden/Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Verve B0002887-02, 2004, CD; Dialogues, Charlie Haden/Carlos Paredes, Polydor 843 445-2, 1990, CD.
35 See Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories), Pat Metheny & Charlie Haden, Verve/Polygram records 537 102-2, 1997, CD, and Rambling Boy, Charlie Haden Family & Friends, Decca B0011639-02, 2008, CD.