charlie haden

Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. Building on the work of his predecessor bassists Jimmy Blanton and Charles Mingus, Haden revolutionized the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz, evolving a way of playing that sometimes complemented the soloist, and sometimes moved independently, to help liberate bass players from a strictly accompanying role, to becoming more direct participants in group improvisation.