Charlie Haden
Quartet West

An epiphany, this album. An album that embodies the seeds of Evansian lyricism, the vitality of be-bop, the legacy of Bud Powell, and the crepuscular mood of certain more intimate and sublime jazz ballads. Simply a masterpiece, this album by Charlie Haden's "Quartet West". An album founding a splendid formation that can be tense at times, carefree at others, playful at times, but that always maintains, instinctively, a radiant and secure balance on the stilts of its own art. An album that vibrates suspended between moments of lyrical fury and spasmodically tense moments, burning improvisations of a virtuosity that has within itself that salvific beauty that hides behind a soul. A clean and genuine soul.

And it is starting from the opener "Hermitage" that the first revelation blooms, the first diffused gift of a pearl-gray melancholy given by this album. It's as if Alan Broadbent's piano and Haden's bass subtly converse to prelude the dry, airy, and smiling touch of the great Billy Higgins' drums. But there's also Ernie Watts' splendid saxophone in this album. A sax with a sound that is sometimes dense and full-bodied, then retracting like a porcupine in melancholically crepuscular atmospheres, until it childishly explodes in the sparkling cheerfulness of "The Good Life".

Epiphanies that blossom delicately like apricot flowers. Like the ecstasy of "My Foolish Heart," which intrigues and captivates in its bittersweet mood. Or tart and juicy epiphanies, as in "Passport" which pays its rightful tribute to the great "bird" Charlie Parker. But it is especially in tracks like "In The Moment" where this album reaches its peaks. A tense and hypnotic track like an impossible escape from a labyrinth of the heart with no way out. Or the hesitant and "old-fashioned" melancholy of the groove that obsessively and gradually grows in "Bay City". This is a timeless jazz album, an album that now captivates you, now stirs a motion of the soul imbued with pleasure and melancholic sweetness. Like the splendid smile of Billy Higgins that shines in that "Hyperion" that the great Charles Lloyd would dedicate to him a few years later.