Always Say Goodbye is an album by American jazz bassist Charlie Haden's Quartet West that was recorded in 1993 and released on the Verve label.[1]
The "intro" and the "ending" tracks feature excerpts from Howard Hawks' film The Big Sleep.
Eric Brace of The Washington Post wrote that the album "takes music and dialogue from films like Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep, and combines them with Quartet West originals and standards from past eras to create a romantic sound collage that won Down Beat magazine's Album of the Year award in 1994."[4]
The AllMusic review by Daniel Gioffre awarded the album 4 stars, stating, "Always Say Goodbye is part of the continuing Quartet West project by Haden, in which the venerable bassist attempts to evoke the spirit of Hollywood circa 1930-1940... The results, though at first a little bit unsettling, are quite spectacular... Highly recommended".[2]