Charlie Haden
Liberation Music Orchestra

An adventure.

I admit I have a penchant for instruments like the bass, double bass, baritone sax, the first keys on the left side of a piano, the tubax, the big beat "pump," the sousaphone, and any other instrument with a "bass" sound and nature. Besides the enveloping warmth that only a good fire or a thick blanket can offer, I think they have an immense protective spirit towards others, somewhat like saying, "go ahead and feel free to explore the most remote territories, we've got your back". Therefore, when I encounter some characters, thanks to the "bass" chemistry, I can get them right away, managing to get emotional by metabolizing their art in real time. And if some artists go beyond just being good craftsmen and delve into research, then the figure of the artist immediately takes on a mythological stature.

This is precisely the case with Charlie Haden. Known "by surprise."

I was just starting a journey through the discography of Ornette Coleman (beginning with "The Shape of Jazz to Come"), and after only 10 seconds of the opener "Lonely Woman", I had to press stop. "What was that double bass?" I was captivated like a judge who chooses the friend who only came to accompany any selection. Struck by a moment of attention. I listened to that intro several times, "it's him" I thought, "he will be the one to accompany me on this adventure". Shortly thereafter I soon found myself in front of his first work as a leader, at the expense of good Ornette who will still steal some of my time in the future.

A leap of ten years ('69) allows me to listen to "Liberation Music Orchestra", and I am immediately struck because it is not a form of solo egocentrism, but it's about talent and technique put at the service of a strong ideal. There are no private feelings from Haden, but musical revolutions and assaults with a Latin flavor disguised as a manifesto of protest against Nixon's republican America and the Vietnam expeditions. A metaphorically perfect record. Pieces like "El Quinto Regimiento" and "Song For Che", thanks also to the excellent arrangement by Carla Bley, manage to sound angry and tremendously motivated, even to ears not well-trained in jazz like mine, which paradoxically (but also due to the ability to connect such ideals to a fierce experimentation) make me associate this collective with the more recent Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

It's 2010, many things have changed but nothing has changed, and there is an ever-growing need for Liberation Music Orchestra.