One of American music’s singular voices has been silenced: I just got an email announcing the death this morning of the great bassist and composer Charlie Haden. One of my favorite albums of all time—in any genre—is the one he made with Pat Metheny in 1997 called Beyond the Missouri Sky. Here’s “Waltz for Ruth” from that album.
“I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life,” Haden wrote in his acceptance speech when he was inducted into the National Endowment for the Arts 2012 class of Jazz Masters. “When you’re in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow—there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance.”
