Paul Haines

Bio:

PAUL HAINES (1933-2003) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Secret Carnival Workers is a meticulously compiled collection of Haines’ work as a writer, from 1955-2002, detailed below.

The book includes Paul's lyrics, poems, short fiction and his music journalism as well as photographs from Haines’ early years in Michigan, where he was one of the first to literally cross the tracks to discover “race records”, the great untapped gold mine of American jazz, in a time when segregation was still the rule in music venues, radio stations and all public establishments across the country. The book chronicles Haines’ extraordinary travels across the globe in search of his one love: Music.

Michel Contat, an expert on Jean-Paul Sartre and jazz critic at Le Monde newspaper in Paris, credits Paul with introducing him to the phenomenon which later came to be known world-wide as “free jazz”. Jean-Paul Sartre himself described Paul as “the only man who can pun in French”. Haines went on to become one of the most respected voices of his generation: “Through his words, sharp comments, Paul Haines changed the way a lot of musicians thought about their work.” (Kip Hanrahan, Jazziz magazine)

Until his death in January 2003, Paul Haines was a writer and a video artist who documented,inspired and collaborated with the experimental jazz and rock musicians he most admired. In addition to his poems, his lyrics, liner notes and other writings on music are unique in that they run parallel, verbally, to the music itself and reflect in outlandishly original ways his life-long love of jazz.

Born in Vassar, Michigan in 1933, he served in the Korean War and later lived in Paris, New York, New Mexico and New Delhi before settling in Canada. He went on to become the well-loved but reclusive Paul Haines, Canadian jazz-poet and great textualist to the avant garde. Throughout his life he worked with highly regarded jazz and rock artists such as Soft Machine founder and songwriter Robert Wyatt, Big Star singer Alex Chilton, Cream frontman Jack Bruce, Canadian chanteuse Mary Margaret O'Hara, Toronto visual artist/pianist Michael Snow and Plunderphonics creator John Oswald on "Darn It!" (1994), Memphis genre-benders Curlew on their album "A Beautiful Western Saddle" (1993) and most famously wrote the lyrics for American composer Carla Bley’s 1971 double-album masterpiece “Escalator Over the Hill”.

Praise for Escalator Over the Hill:

“A who’s who of both free jazz and rock” Rolling Stone Magazine

“A monumental, Herculean work” The Village Voice

In 1973, EOTH was voted LP of the year in the Melody Maker Jazz Poll and was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque de Jazz in France the same year. Haines always aspired to the accomplishments of this landmark work which broke down the boundaries between artistic disciplines, between musical genres, between “high” and “low” art. The Bley/Haines follow-up “Tropic Appetites” (1974) was met with adulation in jazz circles. "A Beautiful Western Saddle" and "Darn It!" both received an impressive amount of critical acclaim from many respected publications and "A Beautiful Western Saddle" was named one of the best albums of the 1990s by Downbeat Magazine.

As one of the first to discover free jazz, he is credited in his early days with not only writing liner notes for but actually recording on his own rudimentary tape machine timeless seminal performances of such luminaries as saxophonists Albert Ayler and Steve Lacy as well as trombonist Roswell Rudd.

His work as a freelance music journalist includes articles and essays on pianist Paul Bley, saxophonist Evan Parker and others. Near the end of his life, in 2001-2002, Haines covered jazz festivals in Siena and Istanbul and wrote feature articles for Coda Magazine.

Haines made a strong impression on the international arts community with his experimental visual works as well. His videos have been shown internationally at Canada House in London, 49th Parallel in New York and in Canada at the prestigious Banff Centre.

We miss him.

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"Actively associated with some of the most progressive musicians in jazz for almost 30 years, Haines' writing moves in quirky, unpredictable rhythms with a love for sound, surprise, and tart, understated humor."

Fernando Gonzales, Boston Globe

"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."

Tom Sekowski, Exclaim

" Darn It! is more like a strand than a web; it strings together an outrageous number of artists... Haines is the through-line."

John Corbett, Downbeat ..

Member Since:

April 04, 2008

Record Label:

Coach House Books