It all started in Los Angeles in the 1950s when Charlie Haden moved to the city after rejecting a scholarship to study at the Oberlin Conservatory and decided to take up jazz as a career. Here he met some of the great jazz names and hooked up with Ornette Coleman, who was developing the free-form or improvisational style of playing, full of modernism, experimentation and innovation.
Around the same time, Larance Marable, who was born and brought up in LA, was also learning his trade, listening and learning: "I knew Charlie from our childhood days, when we were very youthful," Marable says. "Jazz was our heritage and that's how we came to it. People used to play in the streets then, just playing jazz and that's how we came to it and that's how we came to know each other."
Like Haden, Marable spent much of the 1960s in New York, learning and earning, before moving back to LA, where they would later meet up with Ernie Watts and Alan Broadbent, the saxophonist and pianist/arranger, who, led by Haden, would form Quartet West in 1987.
Watts was classically trained but diverted by jazz, joining a band and then "The Tonight Show" for 20 years, which brought him to LA. Broadbent, who is originally from New Zealand, got a scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, moved into the jazz stream with Woody Herman and then moved to LA in the 1970s. Twice nominated for a Grammy, Broadbent has become known for his skillful arrangements as much as for his piano playing.
While waiting at their Taipei hotel for Haden to arrive, Broadbent and Marable talk about their music and whether or not it can be defined as romantic. Broadbent insists: "All music is romantic. It's got emotion." Marable says: "Love comes out of the music and that is what the audience connects with."
When talking about Haden, Marable says, "Charlie is an artist through and through, no question, he lives every day with his music, for his music." Broadbent adds: "Yeah, sometimes it is difficult for him as an artist. He's not something that has been put together by market research, found and packaged, like Britney Spears." To them Haden is the genuine article. Sincere about his art, he has paid his dues, done the tours and time building an audience, and, most importantly, produced the music. He is, they say, "The quintessential artist."
They chat about their Tinseltown connections, artists they know and love and the differences between audiences the world over. It is easy to see how familiar they are with each other and this clearly translates into their music: Half a century of jazz history is distilled in Quartet West. Their sound now is sophisticated and familiar, bound together by the bass strings of Haden, Broadbent's piano fills the spaces and scents the air, Marable's distinctive high hat rhythms and drum rolls keep the pace, Watts' saxophone glides and swoops.
In the last 13 years Quartet West has produced five albums and toured much of the world. Haden has become a legend in his own lifetime, consistently being nominated by critics and audiences for his albums, with a wide range of collaborators, and shows.
As Marable says, "We are genuine jazz enthusiasts, to know that and communicate it is the thing we do. The basic thing is not what people say, it is what people play."
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