CHARLIE HADEN

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

Some tracks are with quartet and some tracks are with synthesizer.

I always told the people at Cal Arts that if they wanted me to do Jazz studies, first of all, there couldn't be a big band within 500 miles and that I could do what I wanted to do. And they said I could.

We're here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference in this planet. That's what art forms are about.

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives, especially people who aren't exposed to creative music.

As long as there are musicians who have a passion for spontaneity, for creating something that's never been before, the art form of jazz will flourish.

There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice.

I have music inside me and I'm very lucky to be able to play music and that's the way that I try to do it.

James Cotton is a real blues guy, and he played with Muddy Waters, and it surprised me that they would want me to make a record with them, that he called me to do this record. I'd never done anything like that before. But I love blues, so I was very happy.

I just sit down at the piano and rattle it off.

It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there.

When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.

I just see myself as a human being that's concerned about life.

I can write a song about my hero Che Guevara and call it 'Song for Che.'

I want to take people away from the ugliness and sadness around us every day and bring beautiful, deep music to as many people as I can.

One of the things polio does is it takes away your energy. They don't know very much about it. They should be a lot more aware of what polio is.

My dad was a great guy; my mother was wonderful. I was very lucky to be around music from the time I woke up until I went to bed.

I always felt that I was born in the wrong era. I wanted to be friends with John Garfield, for instance.

I used to listen to a lot of Bach on the radio, and when the basses started to sing, it made everything complete - it made it all make sense.

People ask me how could I go from country to jazz. It's been a natural convergence for me.

When you listen to a symphony orchestra, and the basses don't - there's no bass part, there's not that much depth. That's why I'm attracted to the instrument, the bass. It brings depth. It's like playing in a rainforest.

My roots have never left me... because the very first memory I have is my mom singing and me singing with her.

I want to expand jazz; I don't want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.