Time / Life

With a career that spanned more than a half a century, Charlie Haden proved to be not only one of jazz’s finest bassists and composers, he was also a staunch champion of justice. Throughout his career, his rebellious yet gentle spirit addressed various socio-political injustices, particularly with his galvanizing Liberation Music Orchestra, which he founded in 1969. The following year, it released its prophetic, eponymously titled debut album on Impulse Records!, which boasted a stellar lineup that included such fellow jazz renegades as Don Cherry, Gato Barbieri, Dewey Redman, Paul Motian, and the arranger, composer Carla Bley whom Haden would eventually ask to arrange all of his subsequent Liberation Music Orchestra recordings. Haden often said, “Carla hears music exactly the way I want the arrangements to sound.”