The bassist and composer Charlie Haden is a real all-rounder. As part of the ground-breaking Ornette Coleman Quartet, he was at the fringes of new music. As part of his own Quartet West, he is equally comfortable at the heart of the most accessible and beautiful old music, resetting the great American songbook in the company of singers such as Shirley Horn and Bill Henderson. Recorded with quartet and chamber orchestra, Haden even sings one himself, a heartbreaking version of Way- faring Stranger that takes him back to his roots in Shenandoah, Iowa.
"We sang all those old folk songs," he says, "those songs that came over from Ireland and Scotland and England into the Appalachians and the Ozarks where I was raised. So I'd hear all these beautiful songs and I'd write down the names of them, and keep them. Then over the years, as I came across beautiful songs, I'd keep lists of them, too. There aren't that many beautiful songs, and then there some songs that are done a lot. The ones I want to do are those that are beautiful and hardly anybody knows about."
Those early days with his family's country music group seem at odds with his later incarnation with Ornette Coleman, but Haden maintains there was no great leap from country to jazz. Singing daily on television and radio, Haden immersed himself in music, and developed a considered and disciplined attitude.
Country music, as it was understood and performed in the 1940s, taught him that "every note had to mean something", an approach that has sustained him since.
"Country music, back when I was a kid, was about very beautiful harmonies and melodies, and there was a lot of improvisation going on. So it was a natural thing for me to go from country music to jazz, both very deep musics and both born in the US. "The first time I heard jazz, I knew it was what I had to do, like I had already been a part of it. I went to see jazz at the Philharmonic in Omaha, Nebraska, and that was Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Ray Brown and Oscar Peterson; after that I knew what I had to do."
Having learned about melody, chords and harmony from his singing days, Haden took quickly to acoustic bass. He also began listening intently to jazz on record and, once he had saved enough money, he struck out for Los Angeles to find his musical heroes, in particular Hampton Hawes. Soon he was working with Hawes, Dexter Gordon, Paul Bley and Art Pepper, and making a name for himself as a particularly inventive bass player. In 1957, he met Ornette Coleman and soon hooked up with Billy Higgins and Don Cherry to form the classic Ornette Coleman Quartet. It was controversial stuff: music freed from the usual constraints - some would say requirements - of rhythmic and harmonic structure. They were something of a sensation.
"We weren't really thinking about where we were. We just wanted people to like the music. We weren't thinking about all the controversy - being called innovators or noise-makers - we were just concentrating on our music. It was about different ways of connecting and communicating with our audience, and being intuitive among ourselves. "We were the only ones hearing what we were hearing, and we couldn't wait to get to work every night. There are not many musicians who can play in that way. It's a special way of improvising that not many musicians can do. We're still that way - I played with Ornette last summer and it's beautiful."
Haden worked with Coleman throughout the 1960s, also finding time to work with other "out there" musicians such as Archie Shepp, Keith Jarrett and John Coltrane. He was much in demand as a bass player, regarded as one of the best and most innovative, and credited as having almost invented a brand-new way of playing. Full of confidence, he teamed up with Carla Bley in 1969 and formed yet another landmark jazz line-up - the Liberation Music Orchestra - an 11-piece band that set about music and politics with considerable passion.
"I was brought up in a very racist area and whenever I see injustice I feel like I want to try to do something about it. I'm not really a politician and would never want to be, but I am concerned. Usually it's during Republican administrations, and now that Bush is elected, I might have to do another Liberation Music Orchestra album. "I think that if just one person is changed or touched by what we do, then we have done something. I've always felt inside that I have a responsibility to make this a better place with my music, and it's on another level from paying your rent and buying your groceries. It's dedication to making it a better world, and a responsibility to play as much beautiful music as you can, to as many people as you can.
"Everything that I do is carefully thought about. It's done in a thoughtful way to make sure that it communicates something to all different kinds of listeners, not just the jazz audience."
Haden stresses that he likes to play music which is beyond categorisation. In recent years, there has been a spirituals set with the pianist Hank Jones and an acclaimed guitar-led album with Pat Metheny. His forthcoming album, released on April 30th, is a recording of Cuban boleros with the pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba. It's a wide-ranging and versatile approach for which Haden is frequently lauded - and that finds its full expression in Quartet West. Since the group's formation in 1987, albums such as Angel City, Haunted Heart, Always Say Goodbye and The Art of the Song have revealed Haden in open mood, performing everything from his own compositions to Charlie Parker, folk song and, perhaps surprisingly, the lush film-noir sounds of 1940s Hollywood. These 1990s recordings show that for every revolutionary bone in Haden's body, there's also a romantic one.
"It's all part of the same approach. The art form of improvised music known as jazz is struggling to be recognised and respected. It's always been a struggle for the jazz musician to get his music out to the people, and so that's a political commitment in itself right there. "The records I've made with Pat Metheny, or Quartet West, or Ornette, or Gonzalo, are all to do with bringing beauty to the world. The Liberation Orchestra recordings are to bring beauty to the world, too, but they are also to call people's attention to the need to help people struggling to live in a free society. "But whatever it is, I've always wanted people to love my music. We're playing for the people. You want to touch something inside another person that brings them closer to the deeper parts of themselves. "And the jazz audience is a beautiful audience, because in order to appreciate deeper music, you have to have a great ear, and so most of the people who are attracted to this music have really good musical ears. What we are all trying to do, all the time, is create a bigger audience: more and more people who can appreciate deeper music and art."
Quartet West, featuring Ruth Cameron on vocals, play Vicar St (01-6097788), Dublin, on April 29th as part of the ESB Jazz Series