Bassist Charlie Haden gained his initial fame with the Ornette Coleman Quartet of 1959-1961, developing an innovative style that allowed him to walk the bass and create a forward movement and momentum while not stating a chord structure. Haden worked on other rewarding groups through the years, including his Liberation Music Orchestra, the 1970s Keith Jarrett Quintet, and in Old and New Dreams. His longest running project has been Quartet West, which he formed in 1986. A somewhat nostalgic unit, Quartet West matches Haden with tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and usually drummer Larance Marable on melodic jazz that often could have been played in 1950s (or at least 1960s) Los Angeles. The two-CD set The Private Collection consists of two rare concerts from early in the group's existence. The first CD, recorded at a club date on Charlie Haden's 50th birthday, has the group (with its original drummer Billy Higgins) playing songs by Pat Metheny, Tony Scott, Miles Davis, Bach (a beautiful rendition of "Etudes"), and Charlie Parker in 1987. The second CD, recorded in 1988 in St. Louis, was a homecoming of sorts for Haden, who had many friends in the audience. The quartet (with Paul Motian on drums) performs numbers by Metheny (a second version of "Farmer's Trust"), Charlie Parker, and Ornette Coleman (a nearly 23-minute rendition of "Lonely Woman") plus "Body and Soul" and two Haden originals. Ernie Watts' tenor flights are consistently full of fire, passion, and intensity. His tone is soulful and distinctive, and Watts' style has his own "sheets of sound." While Haden and the drummers are capable of pulling the music in any direction, pianist Alan Broadbent keeps the proceedings grounded, chordal, and boppish. Although one would not have necessarily predicted this direction for Charlie Haden's music in 1970, it has worked out quite well. This well-recorded two-fer features Haden's Quartet West at its best. - Scott Yanow
Originally released as limited edition single discs sets, bass icon Charlie Haden and specialty audiophile label Naim Audio finally give The Private Collection broader release. Two CDs documenting two concerts with his then relatively nascent Quartet West from 1987 and 1988, it's also a dovetail to The Best of Quartet West (Verve, 2007), prefacing Haden's 2008 summer tour with founding members Alan Broadbent (piano), Ernie Watts (saxophones) and newcomer Rodney Green (drums).
The 1987 show was in celebration of Haden's fiftieth birthday, and features the original Quartet West line-up with the late Billy Higgins on drums. Paul Motian is in the drum seat for the 1988 performance, prior to Larence Marable joining the band and remaining until it's sixth and (so far) final studio disc, The Art of the Song (Verve, 1999). Initially conceived as a West Coast, film noir homage, Quartet West's origins were as more of a playing band, in contrast with later projects, where Haden would paste archival recordings, Zeilig-like, from artists including Coleman Hawkins, Chet Baker and Duke Ellington.
With a handful of tracks from its first two releases, the group takes liberties with tunes like Pat Metheny's "Hermitage"—originally a lyrical tune from the guitarist's folkloric New Chautauqua (ECM, 1979)—that recall just how exciting the group was in its early years, before a stronger nostalgic penchant set in. Firmly planted in the mainstream, Charlie Parker's "Passport" is still a thrilling fifteen minute ride, with fiery solos from everyone, most notably Higgins, whose brushwork remains an unparalleled thing of beauty to this day.
Motian's set makes clear, on Charlie Parker's "Lisa," that despite a lifelong predilection for color he's just as capable of swinging hard. But it's the 23-minute version of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" that's a high point on two-and-a-half hours of music where the bar is set extremely high from the outset. More open-ended than anything the group's recorded before or since, its unbridled bursts of energy prove Broadbent and Watts—two players largely associated with the mainstream—to be more widely versed than their discographies suggest. Haden's solo returns to the country roots of his younger days, but feels completely natural in the context of Quartet West's no-boundaries approach to this Coleman classic.
Two versions of Metheny's poignantly balladic "Farmer's Trust" shed light, not only on how each performance is different for Quartet West, but on the difference two drummers can make. With Higgins it's taken at a brighter tempo, swinging in ways that Metheny's original on Travels (ECM, 1983) never did. With Motian the tempo is slower, the drummer providing a more texturally driven, implicit pulse. Still, as the tune intensifies during Watts' fluid solo, Motian doesn't steer clear of explicit rhythm, making it the more dramatic and, ultimately, satisfying take.
Surpassing its Best of collection, The Private Collection finds Haden and Quartet West at its true best, with material spanning four decades but still sounding, twenty years later, as if it had been written yesterday. - John Kelman
These two CDs, originally released separately, have been reissued together to commemorate the American bassist/composer Haden's 70th year - also the occasion for Verve's Best of Quartet West compilation, reviewed last month. The Verve disc picked from all Haden's moody, film noir-inflected Quartet West albums. The feel here is both more intimate and heatedly spontaneous, and likely to exert a particularly strong pull for audiences at the quartet's acclaimed opening show at the recent London jazz festival. Half the music is from a recorded private birthday gig for Haden in 1987, with a spookily yearning-sounding Ernie Watts on sax and a cymbal-tingling Billy Higgins on drums (recorded very upfront) on an unusual Quartet West repertoire that includes two full-on Charlie Parker fast boppers, a twisting account of Miles Davis' Nardis, and a lovely version of Pat Metheny's Farmer's Trust. The second CD, from a 1988 public concert, reflects Quartet West's more familiar restraint, reprising Farmer's Trust more delicately (but with less mystery), smouldering on a 20-minute version of Ornette Coleman's Lonely Woman, and featuring Haden at his majestically deliberate best on long bass explorations in Silence, and Body and Soul. - John Fordham
Tracks
Disc 1
1. Hermitage (Pat Metheny)
2. Passport (Charlie Parker)
3. Misery (Tony Scott)
4. Nardis (Miles Davis)
5. Segment (Charlie Parker)
6. Farmer's Trust (Pat Metheny)
7. Etudes (J.S. Bach)
Disc 2
1. Bay City (Charlie Parker)
2. Farmer's Trust II (Pat Metheny)
3. Lonely Woman (Ornette Coleman)
4. Silence (Charlie Haden)
5. Body and Soul (Heyman/Eyton/Green/Sour)
6. Lisa (Charlie Parker)
CHARLIE HADEN bass
BILLY HIGGINS drums (disc-1)
PAUL MOTIAN drums (disc-2)
ALAN BROADBENT piano
ERNIE WATTS saxophones
CD1: Charlie Haden 50th Birthday Concert, August 6th 1987
Recorded at "At My Place" Santa Monica, California, USA
CD2: Charlie Haden Live at Webster University, St Louis
Recorded April 4th 1988
Naim Label – NAIMCD108