Charlie Haden: The Private Collection

Charlie Haden - double bass
Alan Broadbent - piano
Ernie Watts - saxophones
Billy Higgins - drums (CD1)
Paul Motian - drums (CD2)

CD1, Charlie Haden's 50th Birthday Concert, was recorded in True Stereo at At My Place, Santa Monica, California, USA by Ken Christianson, Pro Musica, Chicago on August 6 1987.

CD2, Charlie Haden with Quartet West, was recorded live at Webster University, St Louis, USA by Ken Christianson, Pro Musica, Chicago on April 4 1988.

Originally released as two individual Naim titles in 1994, Charlie Haden's Private Collection Vol 1 & 2 were limited to 2,200 copies each and sold through Naim's UK Hi-Fi retailers. Re-released in celebration of Haden's 70th birthday, the release also marks Naim repertoire spanning 20 years of Haden's career, with material that has never been available for the mass market

The material, fused together in this superb double digipack, designed by Singaporean artist Yuki Chong, now appears re-mastered courtesy of life-long friend Ken Christianson, who produced the original True Stereo recordings of both concerts.

Long regarded as one of the worlds' greatest living bass players Haden first made a name for himself in the late fifties with the forward-thinking, and at the time revolutionary, quartet alongside Ornette Coleman and then in the sixties as part of the aforementioned Keith Jarrett's trio and American Quartet. In the seventies Haden formed the Liberation Music Orchestra, a spirited politically minded free-jazz band that concentrated much of their ideas on the Spanish Civil War. Throughout the eighties and nineties Haden has worked with all manner of musicians both in the jazz world and beyond achieving massive critical acclaim both for his collaboration with guitarist Pat Metheney ("Beyond The Missouri Sky") and with his own band he formed in the late eighties, Quartet West.