Paul Haines RIP

> Dear Cuneiform friends and associates;
>
> My apologies for breaking this news to you in an impersonal email.
>
> One of the most beloved members of the world of avant jazz, Paul Haines,
> died of a massive heart attack on Wednesday, January 21, 2003. He died in
> Ontario, Canada, his home for many years, where he leaves behind his wife,
> Jo, and children.
>
> This is neither an obituary of Paul, nor a comprehensive compilation of his
> works. This is merely a notice to those we know in the music community of his
> passing. Paul's impact on the avant jazz world was wide-ranging, and I'm ill
> equipped to give justice to his achievements. I leave that to those of you
> who are professional journalists and music historians.
>
> In brief, Paul Haines was a writer (of poems) and a video artist, who both
> documented (in prose & poetic writing, as well as film and video) and
> inspired (his poems transformed into music) the jazz musicians around him.
> Over the years he lived in New York City, New Mexico, India (8 yrs), Paris,
> Kensington, MD (a town near DC, for 1 yr.), and finally Canada, where he
> lived for years in Ontario province, far outside Toronto.
>
> In 1995, the Toronto periodical *Sub Rosa* published a special issue devoted
> to the work of Paul Haines. The opening essay, written by Tom Sekowski,
> focused on Paul's poems. In Tom's words: "Where do you begin in capturing
> Paul Haines' life? On paper? On film? On Vinyl? The answer is all three. My
> job, however, is to present the Paul Haines that I'm most familiar with -
> the... central Ontarian, musicologist-extraordinaire, poem writer with steel
> balls like no other. ...for starters, he makes it clear (beyond any
> reasonable doubt), that he does not write poetry. He writes poems. No more,
> no less, gorgeous little vignettes of life as he sees it at any given point
> in time, wherever he might be.... Anything that can look itself in the mirror
> and honestly say, I am I, is a poem of Paul's. ...Paul speaks the truth as he
> sees it."
>
> Paul's poems have appeared in tradional printed formats: in books and
> periodicals. In 1981, a collection his poems, called *Third World Two*, was
> published by Alliance Press. (Another chapbook was to be published in Canada
> in the 1990s.) His poems have been published in magazines in the US
> (magazines such as First Person and Genesis West/San Francisco), Canada
> (Evidence, MusicWorks, Only Paper Today, Sub Rosa Parachute/Montreal); in New
> Delhi, India; and in France (on the cover of *Improjazz* !).
>
> But Paul is best known for his written works that have appeared in
> non-traditional/non-literary settings, and especially in his numerous
> collaborations with jazz musicians. Samples of his poetry and prose have
> been printed on the covers or sleeves of jazz albums by Albert Ayler, Paul
> Bley, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Larry Durbin, and Jazz Composer's Orchestra.
> In turn, he has documented jazz musicians within his poetry, as well as
> recording them on tape; biographers note that he was the recording engineer
> of such significant 1960 works as *Spiritual Unity*, *School Days* (1961-63
> Steve Lacy Quartet) and *New York Eye and Ear Control*...
>
> Above all, Paul is known as the poet whose writings were set to music by some
> of the late 20th C's most forward-looking jazz musicians, songs which formed
> the core of some of the most seminal, significant avant-jazz releases of the
> 20th Century. His first such collaboration with jazz musicians was *Escalator
> Over The Hill*, a jazz-opera created with Carla Bley and released in
> 1971(JCOA 1971; ECM/BMG). *Escalator Over the Hill* is a landmark work; it
> broke down the boundaries between artistic disciplines, between musical
> genres, between "high" and "low" art. In its brochure for Company Week 92,
> the London Arts Board called Paul:
> "..a serious but not solemn artist [who]... has considerably expanded the
> traditional role of the poet. His longstanding artistic involvement with
> music has produced some extraordinary rethinking of the relationship between
> the word and sound and one of the most revelatory collaborations in
> contemporary recording. Escalator Over the Hill, created with composer Carla
> Bley, is widely considered the seminal work of the new music of the 1970's"
> Paul's second work of poems set to music, also done in collaboration with
> Carla Bley, was *Tropic Appetities*, released in 1974 (Watt/1).
>
> We at Cuneiform met Paul through composer and saxophonist George Cartwright,
> who set Paul's poems to music for his band Curlew's performance with vocalist
> Amy Denio at 1989's New Music America, then the premiere showcase of avant
> music in the US. Paul made a video of their performance at the Knitting
> Factory (see below for more on his videos).
>
> Several years later, in 1993, Cuneiform released *A Beautiful Western
> Saddle*, a CD featuring music by Curlew (each Curlew member composed a piece
> for the CD, with George contributing the rest), vocals by Amy Denio, and
> lyrics by Paul Haines. The CD remains one of my personal favorites of all
> times. It was the first Curlew CD that Cuneiform released that was not purely
> instrumental, the first Curlew CD with words. Paul would do that to musicians
> - his work inspired them to try things they had not done before, to explore
> alternative paths, unexpected juxtapositions.....
>
> *A Beautiful Western Saddle" received an astounding amount of critical
> acclaim, from publications such as the *New York Times*, *Down Beat*,
> *Cadence*, *Coda*, *Boston Rock*, *Exclaim!* (Canada), *Musiche* (Italy),
> *Esculpiendo Milagros* (Argentina), *Beat* (Norway), and *Opscene*
> (Netherlands), among many others. *Down Beat* would later name this CD one
> of the best CDs of the 1990s, in its issue at the end of the millennium.
> Quite simply, the collaboration - like every such venture that Paul partook
> in - uniquely worked. Stuart Broomer (*Coda*) noted that "Curlew articulates
> the edge of Haines' work, the precision of his verbal outline. Their
> settings.... feed off the ever increasing resilience of Haines' poems. Haines
> has proceeded through the years to boil his poems down to less, until they
> are crystalline flashes in which image and meaning merge, sometimes as comic
> shards of the true light....miracles subtly contaminated with reality."
>
> George Cartwright had originally met Paul Haines through Kip Hanrahan in the
> 1970s, when Paul was setting poems to music for a video. (George would also
> contribute some music to the video.) In 1995, Kip Hanrahan's American Clave
> label released *Darn It*, a double CD that had been over 6 years in the
> making. It was the 4th release to feature Paul's poems set to music. A
> tribute to Paul's work,*Darn It!* featured 33 songs by Robert Wyatt, Paul and
> Carla Bley, Derek Bailey, John Oswald, Michael Snow, Roswell Rudd, Bornean
> Drummers, Evan Parker, Andrew Cyrille, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Jack Bruce,
> George Cartwright, and numerous others... Like *Saddle*, the CD received wide
> critical acclaim. In the words of one critic:
> "So what makes *Darn It!* so damn special? I could go on an on about its
> stellar line up....The flow is never once broken, even though the songs seem
> to break abruptly from blues, to jazz, to rock, to improvised fields. And it
> works. The record is musically second to none, while lyrically it's a crafty
> gem, dying to be found amongst the desert of (most of) the crap that's out
> there in the record stores." [Tom Sekowski, *The Newspaper*, Toronto.]
>
> Following his *Beautiful Western Saddle* release with Curlew, George
> Cartwright continued to incorporate Paul's poetry into two solo recordings he
> released on Cuneiform: *Dot* (1994) and *The Memphis Years* (2000). *Dot*
> featured Paul's lyrics in a single song, "Raw Bird", sung by vocalist (and
> Curlew bassist) Ann Rupel. In George's second solo release, he collaborated
> once again with Paul Haines and Amy Denio. A tribute to George's 5-year
> involvement in Memphis' music scene, *The Memphis Years* also featured some
> of that city's finest musicians. The resulting CD was a blending of strictly
> composed songs sung by Denio, with lyrics from Paul Haines, and composed and
> semi-improvisational jazz-oriented instrumentals. George's admiration for
> Paul's work is underlined in his *Memphis* liner notes, which I excerpt here :
> "You can't really see it or touch it, you can taste it from time to time and,
> when blessed, you can hear it and it ain't going away tho you got to look
> closely to not be fooled... In fact *It Came From Memphis*... I believe you
> can hear a little bit of it here maybe not all maybe occasionally but always
> in some stream or layer or veil of the truly undefinable it is there. ...It's
> also in Seattle with Amy and up in Canada with Paul. Great singer, great
> writer. ...Just listen and not particularly idiommatic crushed amalgam of
> bits and pieces laid out and slapped back to a whole... post Ornette
> (...really more likely pre-Ornette musics...) ...and what did I say about
> Paul? Maybe the best we got folks. Hey see if ya can find any of his books...
> So much with so little so check out *Third World 2*. Check out *Escalator
> Over the Hill* and *Tropic Appetites* and and and *A Beautiful Western
> Saddle.* Ha!"
>
> Paul was a joy to work with and a pleasure to know. We began communicating
> while doing promotion for the Cuneiform *Saddle* CD, first via letter, then
> fax, and finally by email. As our communications became less formal, Paul
> unveiled his priceless humor. (Supposedly Jean-Paul Sartre claimed that
> Haines was the only person who could pun in French and make Sartre laugh.) I
> received xerox and fax objets d'art, surrealist images and newspaper
> collages, on letterheads from the Council of Pet Ball Amnesty with return
> addresses from Craig Stephen Stew Jr., Wardell Windeggs, Nausea Phil and
> others.... These were followed by a suspect *Down Beat* poll listing
> Jean-Paul Sarte as the #2 top male vocalist, and a cassette described by Paul
> as "easy-listening gaslight" music....
>
> In a serious moment, on my request, he sent me a page of info on himself. It
> included two press quotes:
> from the *Boston Globe*, Fernando Gonzales, Dec 7, 1991:
> "Actively associated with some of the most progressive musicians in jazz for
> almost 30 years, Haines' writing moves in quirky, unpredicatable rhythms,
> with a love for sound, surprise, and tart, understated humor."
> and from *MusicWorks* #34:
> "Paul Haines is a poet who writes about music. He has been for several years
> a harbinger listener, someone who is always listening to the musicians
> everyone someday will talk about. In recent years he has produced several
> videos which read hearing, pictorially."
>
> In addition to being a writer (and recording jazz musicians such as Albert
> Ayler, Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd), Paul was an active video artist. He told
> me that his videos had been shown in London (Company Week, The Vortex
> Theatre, and Canada House), Toronto (The Music Gallery; This Ain't the
> Rosedale Library); Edmonton (Latitude 53 Gallery); New York City (49th
> Paralllel); Amsterdam (The Holland Festival); Banff (Banff Centre) and
> Peterborough, Ontario (Arts Space).
>
> He also sent me an annotated list of his video productions. I quote his
> descriptioms directly from his 1993 fax to me:
>
> JUBILEE (1992 21 mins)
> "Using as a shooting script an article on sound I wrote for Musicwroks, [The
> Canadian Journal of Sound Exploration), JUBILEE features a visual chorus to
> the Carol Taylor narrative and spoken or played contributions of Robert
> Wyatt, Evan Parker, and Derek Bailey."
>
> OUR RUDD'S GOLDEN CURTAIN (1992 19 mins)
> "Shot at Sharon Temple, Ontario and Woodstock, New York, the composition,
> trombone, voice, feet and wardrobe of legendary trombonist Roswell Rudd are
> featured."
>
> LEARNING TO COPE WITH HOPE (1992 3 mins)
> "From the Sri Cud novel."
>
> AN ALL-ETHNIC ELECTRIC PROGRAM (1992 transfer from 1966 16mm., 25 mins)
> "Perhaps the first 'absolute' sound film. A curious but very beautiful work."
> -- David Curtis, Experimental Film
> "Those who stayed to the end liked it." -- Michael Snow
>
> CURLEW: Paul Haines Set to Music (1989 44 mins)
> New Music America Festival, with Amy Denio vocals, The Knitting Factory, New
> York City
> "A cycle of songs as a setting for the oblique, witty poems of Paul Haines.
> CURLEW performs at its peak -- which is phenomenally high." -- The Nation
>
> RICE SCENTED IN OUR ABSCENCE (1983 33 mins)
> "Premiere performance of the agfa maria. (This instrument's appearance of
> capacities is conceived in part as respectful parody of Harry Partch's
> chromelodeon. Physically resembling a glass harmonica, its three rows of
> authentically-wired bottles creates (1) conventional musical notes, (2)
> prepared sounds, and (3) prepared visuals.) A music for more than ears.
> Improvisation is deregulated."
>
> THIRD WORLD TWO (1981 50mins)
> "50 poems (French and English) read or sung by an all-star cast, with
> original music by Carla Bley, Derek Bailey, Steve Swallow and Sheila Jordan."
>
> UNDERSTANDING AN INTERRUPTION; 16 MUSICS (1981 60 mins)
> "20 years of collaborations, opening on the scoreboard of the Olympia
> Stadium, Montreal. Paul Bley, Rudd-Lacy, Albert Ayler, Mike Mantler, Gary
> Burton, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Larry Dubin-CCMC, Carla Bley, Monica
> Zetterland, Stuart Broomer, and Kip Hanrahan."
>
> Paul and I remained in touch but communicated less frequently in the busy
> years post *Saddle* and *Darn It!*. Then, in the spring of 2002, I opened my
> snail mail and smiled with surprise: there was Paul and one of his poems
> staring at me from the cover of the French jazz magazine, *Improjazz*. Paul
> always had a habit of putting things in unexpected contexts, creating
> juxtapositions that surprised and jolted like an electroshock to the brain
> while revealing the truth. Now here he was, in a context I would have never
> expected but which made complete sense.... We began communicating via email,
> far easier than our past mail and fax communiques.... Paul's emails ranged
> from serious commentary on the sorry state of American politics post
> elections and post 9/11, to his distinctive oblique, insightful and humourous
> texts. He talked of visiting DC with his wife in the winter, to see the
> Pierre Bonnard exhibition, and possibly visiting with us. We moved our
> offices into a building we were not embarrased to have friends see, and
> looked forward to hearing from them. And then we received a phone call from
> George Cartwright, Paul's very close friend, telling us of the bad news....
>
> Perhaps we should read Sekowski's comments on Paul's CDs in the context of
> Paul's passing, substituting "life" for "music": "When all the music is
> played, there's always Paul's poems. Honest, trying, sometimes hilarious, but
> always dependable. Like an old friend, they'll forever be there when your
> brain needs a meal."
>
> But I'm sure I speak for many when I say that our hearts that will starve in
> Paul's absence.
>
> ---
> For those who want to read about Paul's work, here's a partial bio:
> *SUB ROSA* [Peterborough, Ontario, Canada], vol. 5 No. 1, Spring 1995 issue
> devoted entirely to "Paul Haines: Poetry/ Video/ Jazz", by Tom Sekowski,
> Stuart Broomer, Roswell Rudd and Michel Contat.
> "Paul Haines" by Andrew Jones, *JAZZIZ*, November 1995
> "Paul Haines / Now Can You Tell Me: An Article by Stuart Bloomer: Words and
> Music: A Beautiful Western Saddle", *CODA MAGAZINE*, July/Aug 1995
> "Paul Haines - The Musical Psychic", by Tom Sekowski. *EXCLAIM!* [Canada],
> March 1995
> "Paul Haines - Man with a Future Vision", by Tom Sekowski, THE NEWSPAPER
> [Toronto, Canada], 11/23/94
>
> For info on Haines' poetic collaborations with Curlew, there are numerous
> articles/ reviews, including:
> "Bird on a Wire," Gene Santoro, *The Nation*, March 22, 1993
>
> ---
> 2/3/03
> Joyce Nalewajk
> Director of Publicity & Promotion
> Cuneiform Records

I love "Darn It!," play it all the time. Have seen G. Cartwright a few times too.

Sad loss.

Marcello, hang in there...I'm going thru some bad times myself these days...

Tribute to Paul Haines, 1933-2003
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazz/jon3/jon3030228fhaines.shtml

he's the real Escalator over the Hill chronotransductor
and Bley has proved herself as a great Ron Geesin type hired arranger
fixer

part two of escalator is a bit naughty
if you pick up one of those six Sandanista like sides
at random

then you wake up in the India of "Kashmir"

GEEEZ! tori, i loved you so much, but maybe its a healthy step for me to learn that noone is god-like! not even you!!!

sorry!

ANY YOUNG BIRD'S
SKYLINE HINDRANCE
TO FLYING