12 November 2007
Vortex Online
Vortex Jazz

Featuring two live recordings, the first from an invite-only gig celebrating Charlie Haden's 50th birthday in 1987, the second (a year later) taped at a homecoming concert in St Louis, Missouri, The Private Collection is intimate and winningly informal, yet poised and elegant.
The two bands are basically Quartet West (tenor player Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent) with two guest drummers, Haden's old collaborators Billy Higgins and (in St Louis) Paul Motian, and the material (Pat Metheny's 'Hermitage' and 'Farmer's Trust', Charlie Parker's 'Passport', 'Segment' and 'Lisa', Haden's own 'Silence' and 'Bay City', Ornette Coleman's 'Lonely Woman', Miles Davis's 'Nardis' and Tony Scott's 'Misery', plus 'Body and Soul' and some Bach 'Etudes') will be familiar to anyone who's seen the band live at their recent London concert, indeed, they played many of the above pieces.
Haden's bass playing is characteristically melodic (betraying his roots as a family-band country singer), his solos little gems of sly conciseness, his tone rich, singing and full, but it is Ernie Watts, particularly on ballad material, who really catches the ear, his rapturous, warbling, earnest sound containing just enough grit to give it emotional purchase.
Broadbent is, as ever, the consummate professional, his contribution to a 22-minute 'Lonely Woman' especially intriguing; the two drummers, Higgins the more overtly springy and vigorous, Motian characteristically adept at propelling the band through its quieter moments, provide absorbing contrasts overall, these are polished, intensely listenable albums from one of the most musicianly bands currently working. Warmly recommended.