Page 83 - Jazz

Wednesday, a touchy day - listening to Charlie Haden NGUYEN LE

“There’s a soulful reserve to Haden’s art…his sound 83
and intensity of expression are as deep as any jazz
bassist’s. Rather than concentrate on speed and
agility, Haden subtly explores his instrument’s
timbral possibilities with a sure hand and sensitive
ear”. Chris Kelsey

Experimentation is only a plan to escape from stereotypes, from
method, from the frailty of anticipation, a game played on the edges of
things already learned, a testing out of improvisations and the delight
of discovering a new pleasure in the structure of the original pleasure.
But when a bassist like Charlie Haden teams up with Ginger Backer
and Bill Frisell to play Our Spanish Love Song, I am left wanting
nothing more than a bolthole in the jazz of a dimly-lit pub, where
I can listen to Alone Together or Lady in the Lake (Charlie Haden
and Quartet West) in the company of a glass of wine that casts
a red shadow on my hand, as I surreptitiously watch the girl
at a nearby table chattering distractedly and the leisurely way
she lights her cigarette and how she shapes her lips to blow
a long thin plume of smoke towards the ceiling and how
she twists two fingers around the rim of her glass. Without
it mattering to me that I am suffering for something
that didn’t even happen. A state that takes over when
Billie Holiday echoes in my mind – my first great love,
discovered in a modest record shop in a narrow back
street in Tubingen. Deep Song.
And then in a coming-and-going of “tame”
jazz, calm and full of lyrical quality, recorded by
Haden and Michael Brecker, backed up by no
other than the amazing Brad Mehldau at the
piano (a few “lost” guides to the American
dream), I glide over the loop of time, since what
goes on in this moment of listening that is full
of peace and calm emotion opens up for me