Nightfall Charlie Haden & John Taylor

• 1 Chairman Mao 04:23
• 2 Nightfall 06:05
• 3 My Love and I 07:32
• 4 Au Contraire 04:23
• 5 Windfall 06:06
• 6 Touch Her Soft Lips 06:13
• 7 Song For The Whales 09:11
• 8 Bittersweet 05:47
• 9 Silence 08:02
• Total Runtime 57:42

Info for Nightfall

The reputation of John Taylor, the great British jazz pianist, should have spread further sooner - but since he passed his 60th birthday a couple of years ago, his stock on the international jazz scene seems to have steadily risen. This duo set finds him paired with one of the legends of free-jazz double-bass, Charlie Haden. The playing has a fragile power and these two vastly experienced improvisers listen to each other in a manner finely poised between respectful distance and quietly impassioned intimacy. Haden's eastern-inflected Chairman Mao brings astonishingly harmonious and apposite string-plucking interventions from Taylor, and the latter is in his most inventive mood on the Haden ballad of the title.

A morning-mist of a Native American love song sits alongside Taylor's own Au Contraire, the softly swinging and progressively diversifying Windfall, and a William Walton adaptation that sounds almost indistinguishable from a Bill Evans composition in Taylor's hands. Haden's eerie low arco sound on his own Song for the Whales gives way to the Broadway-ballad feel of Bittersweet, and the dignified meditation of Silence. (John Fordham, The Guardian)

The Naim Label has once again achieved the significant coup of recording with one of the world's best known and most respected double bassists in the world, Charlie Haden. Continuing our tradition of pairing this legend of free-jazz double-bass with whoever he wishes to play with, the great British jazz pianist John Taylor was this time top of Charlie's list.

As equally respected as Charlie, John is probably best known for his work with the ECM label, having founded his trio Azimuth in the late 70s with Norma Winstone and Kenny Wheeler. John is currently a member of Kenny Wheeler's quartet and large ensemble, and performs in duo and quartet settings with John Surman.

Nightfall is an album of musical beauty; an uplifting combination of John's dancing fingers and Charlie's trademark resounding bass and finger slaps. The tracks are all by Charlie or John, with the exception of 'My Love and I' a love song from 'Apache' and a composition from Williams Walton's orchestral suite for Laurence Olivier's Henry V, 'Touch Her Soft Lips'

Nightfall is a celebration of the musical simplicity that comes from recording the double-bass and piano live to a two track stereo tape recorder. Every tone and phrase is there, from John's improvisation through plucking the piano strings on 'Chairman Mao' to Charlie's beautiful yet eerie bowing on 'Song For The Whales'.

Charlie Haden, Double Bass
John Taylor, Piano

Produced by Charlie Haden and Ken Christianson

Recorded at: Roy O Disney Music Hall, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA, 8-9 October 2003 Recorded by Ken Christianson, Pro Musica, Chicago

No biography found.

Booklet for Nightfall