The Music News Thread

[Blooby]

Charlie Haden just passed away.

Charlie Haden, one of the most influential bass players of his generation, has died after a prolonged illness, according to his family and his record label, ECM. Charles Edward Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa in 1937 and was raised in Springfield, MO. The youngest of four kids, Haden made his professional yodeling debut at the age of two as part of his family’s country music act, The Haden Family Band. As a teenager he lost his ability to sing due to polio, developed an interest in jazz and classical music, and began playing the double bass.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1957 and working with pianist Paul Bley, Haden joined Ornette Coleman’s iconic free jazz quartet, which caused quite a musical stir during their 1959 residency at the Five Spot Café in New York City. Haden made essential recordings with Ornette Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry and original drummer Billy Higgins, including albums The Shape of Jazz To Come and Change Of The Century—his solos on tunes like "Lonely Woman" and "Ramblin'" are still remembered—and he also played on the influential Coleman LP, "This Is Our Music."



Addiction to drugs compelled Haden to leave Coleman’s group in 1960. After his rehabilitation he returned to a prolific career as a sideman, eventually joining Keith Jarrett in 1967 as a member of Jarrett’s "American quartet" along with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman and recording nearly twenty albums with the band over a twelve-year period. Haden reunited with Jarrett in 2007, which resulted in "Jasmine," a duet CD of standards, as well as the newly released companion piece "Last Dance."

In 1969 Charlie Haden organized the large, experimental and politically outspoken group, The Liberation Music Orchestra with several fellow jazz rebels including Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, Roswell Rudd and Gato Barbieri. Their first album featured the famous Haden composition "Song For Che" as well as Ornette Coleman’s "War Orphans." Haden led the Liberation Music Orchestra in various combinations over the years, with the most recent recording being 2005's "Not In Our Name." He also played and sang (along with Linda Ronstadt) on Carla Bley’s 1971 opus, "Escalator Over The Hill."

A loving, communal musician, Haden reconnected with his cohorts from Ornette Coleman’s bands and formed "Old & New Dreams" in 1976 with Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and drummer Eddie Blackwell. Uniquely qualified, these four men played a number of Coleman’s obtuse compositions, recording and performing together into the late 1980s.

In 1987 the bassist formed another important group, the Charlie Haden Quartet West featuring saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Lawrence Marable. This elegant quartet fused modernist playing with affection for film noir and music of the 1930s and 1940s. Haden’s Quartet West released eight recordings, most recently 2010’s "Sophisticated Ladies."

In 1997, Haden released a GRAMMY-winning duet album with Pat Metheny, "Beyond The Missouri Sky," which included a moving version of "Spiritual," written by Haden's son Josh. He also put out a series of six recordings from a long stint at the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival with the likes of Paul Bley and Don Cherry, entitled The Montreal Tapes. Over the years the accomplished bassist played with everyone from Art Pepper to Yoko Ono, John McLaughlin, Joe Henderson, Geri Allen, Beck, Archie Shepp and Rickie Lee Jones.

Haden released over twenty albums as a leader and appeared on approximately 150 other recordings. In 2008, he released "Rambling Boy," a return to countrified family music that featured the singing of his triplet daughters, Tayna, Rachel and Petra, as well as appearances by Ricky Scaggs, Jerry Douglas, Vince Gill, Bruce Hornsby, (son-in-law) Jack Black and Elvis Costello.

There’s a 2009 Swiss documentary about Charlie Haden entitled "Rambling Boy," and in 2012 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Award at Lincoln Center in New York City. In recent years Haden had played reunion concerts with Ornette Coleman and recorded beautiful duets with veteran pianists Hank Jones and Kenny Baron. Charlie Haden is survived by his wife Ruth Cameron and his children Josh, Tanya, Petra and Rachel Haden.

[Farrell Jackson]

Pretty interesting set of interview snippets about CSNY's "Doom Tour" of 1974: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-oral-history-of-csnys-infamous-doom-tour-20140619#ixzz35BQz8n1F

The picture below kind of freaked me out.

Blooby, I was in Rome last month and looking at this CSN&Y concert stadium picture gave me the same feeling when I gazed out on the Colosseum from a similar viewing point.......I was in awe of the sheer grandiose nature of it. The feeling was awesome and eerie at the same time, except it was empty besides the tourist.




Farrell

[Blooby]

Crap.  



Johnny Dawson Winter III has passed away, according to several sources close to the blues man. He was 70. Details surrounding his death have not come forth, but will be added as they emerge.

Winter and his brother, Edgar were raised in a musical family, with his roots firmly planted in the Mississippi delta — his father was the mayor of Leland, Mississippi, and Winter was recently honored with a Blues Trail Marker. From before his teens, Winter was playing and recording, even sitting in with the biggest blues legends of the day, including Muddy Waters and a comically reluctant BB King. In 1968, he released his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment (featuring Willie Dixon on Bass), and after a now-famous performance at The Fillmore East, he was signed to Columbia Records with the largest advance ever made to an artist.

After his mammoth deal, Johnny immediately laid out the blueprint for his fresh take on classic blues, according to his official biography, which was a prime combination for the legions of fans just discovering the blues through the likes of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Winter continued to gain widespread critical acclaim with his innovative blues stylings and in 1970, Winter released his commercially acclaimed "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo", before struggling with heroin addiction for several years, before seeking treatment.

He made a successful comeback, culminating in what Winter described to American Blues Scene Magazine as the "highlight of my life", after the closing of Chess Records, he brought Muddy Waters to the studio to record what would widely become known as the bluesman's comeback record, Hard Again. In the album, Winter performed most of the guitar work, while Muddy sang. Winter would go on to produce several Grammy-winning albums for Muddy before the bluesman's death in 1984.

Winter earned several Grammy nominations for his searing, scorching slide guitar work, and was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame in 2003, and was one of Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Players of All Time. "I'm not a rock n roller," Winter told American Blues Scene. "I'm a bluesman." From his earliest childhood in the Mississippi Delta and Beaumont, Texas to his last breath, touring on the road, Winter truly lived up to that statement in every sense of the word.

[64Guitars]

Very sad news. I'm glad I got to see him back in the seventies (twice). I've also seen Edgar Winter a couple of times. They both put on a great show.

R.I.P. Johnny.

[Speed Demon]

Johnny was, and still is, in my top-twenty list of favorite guitarists.

Include Gnasty, Blooby, Farrell, Chapperz, just to name a few more. I know I'm missing a great number of them.

[Satchwood]

RIP Johnny, another sad day for guitarists all over the world... but hell i celebrate your life tonight by learning some of your way-cool blues licks!

[Blooby]

I pulled the text from the Allman Brothers forum...

Wilko Johnson is the former guitarist for one of the best Pub Rock bands of all time, Dr. Feelgood and a renowned solo performer in his own right.

Tragically, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year.

And like Warren Zevon before him, he decided that the best possible therapy would be to try to do another album while he was still able.

Roger Daltrey of The Who stepped up and suggested that they do an album together with Roger doing vocals.

The album Going Back Home will be released 3/24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Me-LubTgk

[Bluesberry]

This one sounds like it is going to be a real good one.....Daltry sounds real good here....Wilko on guitars........this sounds real good...I wonder If that is Daltry on harp?

[Farrell Jackson]

I pulled the text from the Allman Brothers forum...

Wilko Johnson is the former guitarist for one of the best Pub Rock bands of all time, Dr. Feelgood and a renowned solo performer in his own right.

Tragically, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year.

And like Warren Zevon before him, he decided that the best possible therapy would be to try to do another album while he was still able.

Roger Daltrey of The Who stepped up and suggested that they do an album together with Roger doing vocals.

The album Going Back Home will be released 3/24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Me-LubTgk

I think this is going to be a great album...too bad it's under these circumstances. It's a bit eerie but to me, Daltry sounds like our very own Regs on this song!

[Speed Demon]

It appears that we all are losing a lot of good people, lately.  Family, friends and musicians. I attended my mother-in-law's funeral last Sunday.