In an age when criticising the US can get you labelled unpatriotic or worse, Charlie Haden remains unrepentantly, unapologetically left-wing. The veteran US jazzman tells Ray Comiskey about reforming his Liberation Music Orchestra because the times, they do demand it
These are strange times in America. A couple of weeks ago a woman, Lorrie Heasley, was thrown off a plane to LA when passengers joining the flight at a stopover objected to her T-shirt. Her crime? According to the report in the Daily Telegraph, the T-shirt carried images of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice "above an obscene variation on the title of the hit comedy film, Meet the Fockers". Asked to turn it inside out by the cabin crew, she said no and found herself cast into outer darkness.
No doubt that's the kind of biblical image that would appeal to Bush, who seems to believe the White House hotline is connected to God, now that the one to Moscow is no longer much in use. But the story drew a great belly laugh from Charlie Haden, a serious, polite, soft-spoken man, long on idealism, who, until then, had seemed just a tiny bit challenged when it came to a sense of humour.
"No kidding?" he said. "I didn't see anything about that in the American press. Oh, man."
There's no doubting Haden's commitment to what he believes, nor the courage it takes for an artist to swim against the establishment tide at a time when corporate doors can be closed in his face for it. And it's to Universal's credit that it didn't do just that when Haden revived his Liberation Music Orchestra for the fourth time, to have an unambiguous musical blast, Not in Our Name, at the Bush administration on the company's Verve label.
He and Carla Bley, the brilliant arranger, composer and pianist, had been part of the first Liberation Music Orchestra 36 years ago. The outfit used songs from the Spanish Civil War to make a political statement about the Vietnam War.
"I was looking for songs that related to other conflicts that I identified with Vietnam and the injustice of those conflicts," and I was looking for music that inspired improvisation. And I had original recordings from 1937 that were done by Spanish Republican Army bands, which I really liked the sound of.
"The second Liberation Music Orchestra was done because of all the things that were happening during the Reagan administration, El Salvador and Grenada and that. And the third one was done under the father of Bush.
"I felt, you know, I'm a musician. I'm not a politician. I just feel that the way that I can voice my concerns is through music, and I have the right to do that. So I do it."
What does Haden look for in a politician? "Well, I look for someone with compassion, a concern for humanity, someone who recognises the preciousness of life, someone who doesn't see colour, who doesn't see gender, someone who has humility, someone who is very, very intelligent in a creative way.
"And someone who recognises the importance of all the arts in our society, especially with our young people, and who's interested in creative education that starts with the arts and great literature and all the sciences taught in a creative way, and who looks for ways of helping people with medical care and care for the elderly. And who sees that everything is fair in the country. Someone like that."
Has he ever known one? He couldn't have been aware that, to anyone accustomed to Irish politics and politicians, there was a touch of cynicism behind the question. The answer was a surprise.
"Well, you know, Clinton was a very intelligent guy. He made some mistakes, but he did a lot of good. His downfall, of course, was the Monica Lewinsky thing, which was really stupid. But when he took over from Bush everything was a mess. The economy was completely obliterated by the Republicans. He had to work very hard and he didn't have enough time to accomplish the things he wanted. I think that he came close."
The spark for this latest revival of Haden's personal unfurling of musical and political banners began when the bassist was touring Europe with guitarist Pat Metheny two years ago. It was a time when people's feelings were rising about invading Iraq. In Spain and Italy he noticed banners unfurled on balconies in apartment blocks that said "not in our name". It was the first time he had seen such a slogan and, impressed, got in touch with Carla Bley and they set to work on what would become the Not In Our Name project.
Haden has been quoted as saying that he felt the music had to be by American composers, "in protest at what's going on, to make a statement that just because you're not for everything that this administration is doing doesn't mean that you're not patriotic". The resulting choices are freighted with irony and anger, something driven home by Bley's superb, often spiky orchestrations and the committed playing of an exceptional band. The music is also celebratory.
Its multiple meanings are heightened as much by the juxtaposition of each song as by the pieces picked. Sandwiched between Haden's own Not in Our Name and Bley's Blue Anthem, for instance, is Pat Metheny's This Is Not America, which David Bowie sang in the film The Falcon and the Snowman.
Then there's America the Beautiful, turned into a medley by Bley which includes Lift Every Voice and Sing, "which I wanted in there because it's the African-American national anthem for years, and I thought it was about time we played it". The medley finishes by making a starkly contrasting political point with the chaos of Ornette Coleman's Skies of America.
That's followed by Amazing Grace, Dvorak's Goin' Home from the New World Symphony (OK, Dvorak's not American, but at least the music comes from an old American folk song), Bill Frisell's sublime Throughout and, finally, Samuel Barber's Adagio, a hackneyed, though beautiful, piece given a new dressing. Haden picked all except Blue Anthem, the Adagio and Skies of America, which were Bley's choices.
To anyone who remembers Haden mainly as the bassist in the radical and controversial Ornette Coleman Quartet of 40-some years ago, this and other ventures into musical Americana might seem surprising diversions for a revolutionary artist. But Haden is steeped in one of the most basic of his country's idioms - country music.
"I grew up knowing the Carter Family and Roy Acuff. My dad was friendly with Hank Williams and Jimmy Rogers and I was surrounded by all these great country musicians from the time I was two years old until I was 15, and it really made a big impression on me. Country music, you know, came over from England and Scotland and Ireland, and over into the Appalachian mountains and into the Ozark mountains, which is where I was born. And I was interested in music so much when I was a kid that that was all I thought about."
Isn't the audience for country music and things like that growing old now?
"Well, you know, the musical culture is going down in the United States. It's being replaced by . . . I dunno what to call it. It's the music of the time's fashions. You go to a fashion show and you hear this. You go to a mall and you hear it. You go to a department store and you hear it. Get into a taxi, you hear it. Go into an airplane and you hear it. It's this backbeat, brain-damaging techno-decibel stuff that I really believe is brain-damaging. When I come into contact with it, which is a lot, I have to ask somebody to turn it off, or I just leave.
"We used to have popular music in the '40s in this country that was really beautiful - Nat King Cole, the Pied Pipers, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Jo Stafford; very beautiful music that sold millions and millions of records.
"And it's very sad what's going on. I think that all the art forms that have to do with music that stands for deeper things are becoming more and more rare, and a lot of people aren't really exposed to that. So it's up to the individual artist to get their music out there so that other people can be aware of it and that they have an alternative."
And, he couldhave added, if it says something positive about personal liberty as well, that's even better than wearing a T-shirt. It might even be played on a plane - unless, of course, some Bush supporter comes out of the closet and objects. Who knows? He or she might even be thrown off.
If they were, I imagine Charlie Haden would be the first to stand up and be counted for their right to dissent. And to disagree emphatically with them.
Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra plays at Cork Opera House on October 30th as part of the Guinness Jazz Festival
Hot jazz in cool Cork
This year's Guinness Jazz festival in Cork is more about big names than usual. Charlie Haden, Chick Corea and McCoy Tyner all have bands at the Opera House, while over at the Everyman you can hear Dave Holland, Roy Haynes, Ron Carter, Joshua Redman and Richard Galliano.
With the high-profile stars, though, comes real gloss. Pride of place has to go to Haden's superb Liberation Music Orchestra, thanks to the quality of the band members and pianist Carla Bley's mordant orchestrations. But Corea's musical ethnic mingling should also excite interest. And Holland's working quintet, with the great Chris Potter on saxophone, is another to pencil in. Sharing the bill with him is legendary drummer Roy Haynes's young quartet.
Equally legendary are Carter and Tyner, while Redman has been around for so long now that wunderkind no longer applies; he has a new band and a new style which seems sure to divide listeners. And Galliano, the great French accordionist, returns to emphasise the European element in Cork.
The Festival Club at the Gresham Metropole has the usual mix of crowdpleasers, such as Sarah Morrow's rumbustious group, and aficionados' choices. Among the latter are Al Foster, Mike LeDonne (with Eric Alexander and Peter Bernstein), Louis Stewart (with Kirk Lightsey) and Jon Faddis (with Richie and Hugh Buckley).That in turn is an indication of a stronger Irish representation than usual at the Festival Club, among them Nigel Mooney, Zrazy, Organics, Organics, Melanie O'Reilly and American ex-pat Maria Tecce.
Inevitably, some of the most intriguingly varied music is in the smaller venues. The Triskel hosts Enrico Pieranunzi reprising the gorgeous music from his Racconti mediterranei album, with Gabriele Mirabassi and Ronan Guilfoyle. Also there are Simon Nabatov's trio, Scandinavians Terje Rypdal and Ketil Bjornstad, David Berkman from the US, Scots Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock, Michael Nielsen and Benjamin Dwyer from Ireland, Croatia's Bosko Petrovic and Britain's Lee Gibson, with a further chance to hear Faddis and Louis Stewart.
The ICD/Firkin Crane offers Bojan Zulfikarpasic, who played so brilliantly at Farmleigh earlier this year, Honor Heffernan, Intro 05, a group of rising young Irish jazz musicians - and another opportunity to hear Sarah Morrow. The Granary Theatre is host to Dylan Rynhart's remarkable Fuzzy Logic band, sharing the bill with the Kai Septet.
What you hear is as much a matter of personal taste as avoiding scheduling clashes, but among the big names the ones to watch out for begin with Haden, Holland, Corea, Carter and Galliano. The Triskel's programme is also particularly strong, so clashes seem inevitable, but it's hard to ignore Pieranunzi, Nabatov, Rypdal/Bjornstad, Smith/Kellock, Berkman and Nielsen/Dwyer - if you master the art of bilocation. And that still leaves a lot more to ferret out.
The Guinness Jazz Festival runs from October 28th-31st.
See www.corkjazz festival.com
