A posthumous release, but one that Charlie Haden ardently
desired prior to his passing in July 2014. Tokyo Adagio marks the ultimate step
in the American bassist's collaborations with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, the pianist of
genius he met in Cuba in 1986, and with whom Charlie immediately found an
entente bordering on telepathy.
Several
recordings - the famous Montreal Tapes of 1998, the studio albums Nocturne
(2001) and Land of the Sun (2004) - are evidence of the huge complicity binding
these two musicians, but no recording had yet given new life to the pure
exchange they gave to the audience at the Blue Note Tokyo on consecutive
evenings in spring 2005.
Ten years
later, impulse! is happy to publish this unique eye-witness account with a
title to Charlie's taste (he referred to himself as "an adagio guy.")
Through this tribute to the stateliness of his inimitable grace, the spirit of
Charlie Haden is still with us.
LINER NOTES:
TIMELESSNESS, AT NIGHT - by Ned Sublette
One of the
qualities I most prize about this album is its paradoxical sense of
timelessness and placelessness -- beyond jet lag, beyond the endless grey hours
spent at 35,000 feet to get to the gig -- framed in a specific time and place.
Tokyo, March
16-19, 2005: an audience in evening clothes, ordering drinks in Japanese
whispers and inadvertently clinking their silverware, listened raptly as
Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Charlie Haden connected with an almost Zen sense of
stillness in a nocturnal musicspace. It's the paradox of recording: the moment
is gone, but the moment is forever, encapsulating who the two men were when
they played together. By the time this recording was made, they had been
playing together for twenty years, leaving indelible imprints on each other's
musical identities.
All six
numbers on this album have appeared previously on Charlie's various studio
recordings, one of which was made in collaboration with Gonzalo called
Nocturne. Musically, Charlie plays mainly a supporting part here, as bassists
do, while Gonzalo does most of the elaboration, however it's Charlie who is
directing the flow. It is Charlie who is the producer.
I've been
listening to Tokyo Adagio for six months now, and every time I hear it I'm
struck by its sense of calm. There's even a feeling of serenity in the two
uptempo numbers: Charlie's composition "Sandino" (whose title
commemorates the Nicaraguan revolutionary leader), and Ornette Coleman's
"When Will the Blues Leave" (which originally appeared on Coleman's
groundbreaking 1958 album Something Else!!!!. Though Gonzalo is elsewhere a
grandmaster of rhythmic complexity at high velocity, that's not what is
happening here - instead a virtuosic sense of timekeeping manifests itself as
simultaneities occur seemingly out of nowhere.
Charlie
loved movie music -- "My Love and I" is by quintessential Hollywood
composer David Raksin -- and he had a streak of nostalgic romanticism that
suffuses this recording. Two of the numbers are better known by their original
Spanish titles: "The Edge of the World" is Martín Rojas's "En La
Orilla del Mundo" (whose lyric, unheard here, describes wandering to an
unfamiliar shore), and "You Belong To My Heart" is Agustín Lara's
well-known bolero "Solamente Una Vez" whose title translates to
"Only Once" (and whose lyric proposes that love is the hope that illuminates
one's path.)
For me, the
most touching moment appears at the conclusion: Gonzalo's composition
"Transparence" whose last musical utterance - the close of the album
-- is played by Charlie who continues after Gonzalo's ending to play a figure
that descends to the tonic, conveying a sense of finality that seems especially
poignant now. In terms of sequencing the album, that was a compositional
choice: Tokyo Adagio was put together with Charlie's full participation before
he departed, and it was he who gave the album its haunting name.
ABRIENDO
CAMINOS / OPENING THE PATHS - by Gonzalo Rubalcaba, as told to Ned Sublette
This album
is the result of a four-night residency Charlie Haden and I played at the Blue
Note in Tokyo in March, 2005. Over the years, we made music together in many
different formats - trios, quartets, larger groups - but this date was just us,
a duo of piano and bass.
I first
learned about Charlie when I was a teenager in Havana. It was difficult getting
information in Cuba at that time, and it was even more difficult to find out
about music from the United States. But every night, Monday through Friday at
11pm, Horacio Hernández (father of drummer Horacio "El Negro"
Hernández) presented his jazz program on CMBF Radio Musical Nacional, and for that
half hour I was glued to the radio. One night he played Keith Jarrett's, The
Survivors' Suite, announcing the musicians' names -- Dewey Redman on tenor,
Paul Motian on drums, Charlie Haden on bass.
I engraved those names into my brain.
Then in 1986,
when I was twenty-three, Charlie came to Cuba with his Liberation Music
Orchestra to play at the Havana Jazz Plaza Festival.
I had just
flown in directly from Moscow after performing in the Soviet Union. I don't
know exactly how it happened that the festival programmed my group, Projecto,
on the same concert with the Liberation Music Orchestra, but, let's just say,
that nothing happens on earth that is not observed by divine forces.
After we
played our set, Charlie came over to talk to me. I didn't understand a word of
English, so we had to have a translator.
"We have to play together," he said to me. "How can we do
that?" He and I had someone arrange for us to go the EGREM recording studio
the very next day. Charlie pulled out some charts and we played together for
two or three hours. He left with a cassette of the session. He was very
enthusiastic, and when he got back to the U.S, he took the tape to Bruce
Lundvall of Blue Note Records: "Bruce, I want you to hear this. You gotta
sign this kid, he lives in Cuba!"
Dizzy
Gillespie had been in Cuba before Charlie, and Dizzy had already been talking
about me, and Bruce had heard the talk. But Charlie was much more direct and
assertive. He was persistent and diligent about making sure it happened. There was a major obstacle, however: it was
illegal in the US to sign a Cuban artist, so it had to be done through an
affiliated company, Toshiba EMI in Japan. In the meantime, Charlie figured out
a way for us to play an important concert together by inviting me to come to
the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival as his guest. The plan was for me to play a
concert with him, and Paul Motian on drums, as part of the festival which had
organized a 10-day tribute to Charlie. This was recorded by CBC and later
became part of Charlie's The Montreal Tapes series.
The first
album we made, Discovery, was subsequently recorded live at the Montreux Jazz
Festival in 1990, in a trio also with Paul Motian on drums.
Bruce was at
the concert as were the Japanese executives who approved the deal after we
finished playing. At the time, the US wouldn't let me enter the country, so we
recorded the second album The Blessing with Charlie and Jack DeJohnette in a
studio in Canada. For me, just beginning my career, the way Charlie went about
opening the path for me, made all the difference.
Despite the
gap in our ages, he never treated me as an inferior in any sense. We had each
other's confidence. We could talk about politics, life, family, business.
Spending so much time with him, I learned not only about music, but also about
being. Our connection was about love, for the music and for our families, and
for each other.
CHARLIE
HADEN- AN ADAGIO GUY - By Ruth Cameron-Haden
Charlie
often said to me, and others, that he was an "adagio guy" - and he
was! He loved the slow movements in classical pieces. Hence the title of this
album is so appropriate.
By 2005
Charlie was already starting to experience the ill effects of post-polio
syndrome that would later hasten his death. He had been battling aspiration
pneumonia but nevertheless insisted on traveling all the way to Japan to
perform with Gonzalo. Gonzalo was family and he wanted to take this opportunity
to perform with him in duo. To explore the music in an intimate setting which
was one of Charlie's favorite musical endeavors.
He
remembered their first meeting in Cuba in 1986 - so many years ago - when he
first heard this young genius. He had then figured out a way to perform with
him at a major concert in Montreal, Canada, and to later record with him.
Gonzalo was subsequently able to get a recording contract, and the rest is
history.
Once Charlie
was confined to home because he had become to ill to travel, he began to listen
to tapes of previous concerts and discovered this gem. He immediately called
Jean-Philippe Allard, our producer from impulse! Universal Music France, and a
stalwart supporter of Charlie and his music throughout the years. Charlie asked
Jean-Philippe to listen to the music. This had to be released! It was too good
to be lost forever.
Once Jean
Philippe had listened to the tapes, he, too, agreed and together we began to
choose the most important tracks to go on the album. Charlie listened for days
with great intensity, using his refined senses until he made his decisions. His
ear was huge and he always made the right musical choices. The mood is
intimate, even hushed as each musician listens to the other, creating a
tapestry woven from sheer beauty.
Charlie and
I are so lucky to have loyal friends in producers Jean-Philippe Allard and Farida Bachir who love the music as much
as Charlie and Gonzalo and I do that they want to release it to the world.
We are now
all so lucky to be able to share in this listening experience. Charlie has
passed on but his spirit remains with us in his music forever.
Lovingly, Ruth
Los Angeles, March 9, 2015
