By Mark Bell, NZ Musician, Vol. 8, No. 9 June/July 2000
Joel Haines is not your run-of-the-mill jazz guitarist. In fact he's not your average guitarist full stop. Sure, his axe of preference may be an Ibanez George Benson, but that's where any comparisons with jazz twiddlers of yore must respectfully end.
He also owns a Paul Reed Smith and a customised Joe Satriani Ibanez, built to be "... the gruntiest guitar on earth", and the unholy noises he coaxes from this matt black beast bear little resemblance to anything Blue Note might have in their catalogue.
It is a well known fact that rock and jazz are (and should remain, lest that ghastly idiom known as jazz-rock returns) mutually exclusive clubs, with proponents of each usually having little contact with the music of the other. Not Joel Haines - he has a foot planted firmly in both camps, having mastered the disciplines of both genres with equal facility.
Whether he's racing off incredible, liquid glissandos and arpeggios in jazz mode, or ripping the bag with the sort of time warping, syncopated de-tuned riffage that makes Limp Bizkit sound pedestrian, there's really not another guitarist in the country who can touch him at present.
If you think that's pretty lofty praise for a guy born in 1973, then you should know that he got his first guitar when he was just five, and that his tutor was jazz bass legend Kevin Haines, a.k.a. Dad. Both Joel and his equally talented brother, saxophonist Nathan, seem to have absorbed jazz from this home environment in much the same way that children are such deft learners of foreign languages when constantly exposed to them. Joel speaks fluent jazz, but around the late '80s he decided to expand his vocab to include rock guitar.
If you ever caught Freebass or The Jazz Committee's free-wheeling performances at Cause Celebre in the early '90s, you'd realise that this was not such a quantum ideological leap for a hot young guitarist. Hell, he already had the look down - face hidden under a swathe of long black hair, grunge shirt tied kilt-like around the waist, and low-slung guitar so confidently manipulated by those long expressive fingers.
Whatever jazz musicians might think, rock guitar is not as easy as it looks, and the young Haines' transformation to rock monster did not happen overnight. A stint with ex-Screaming Mee Mee Michael O'Neil's guitar dance-pop band These Wilding Ways got him started, although his tone and execution understandably still leant heavily on jazz.
However, as his pop and rock vocabulary developed along with his reputation, the phone started ringing. Artists as diverse as Tim Finn, Annie Crummer, Strawpeople, Fiona McDonald, Jan Hellriegel, Stellar* and brother Nathan have called on his services for both touring and recording, with his contributions to McDonald's recent solo album a salutary reminder of just how far he's come.
Another reminder comes in the form of his debut solo album 'Seniah LeoJ', recorded at home using Logic Audio and Audiowerk Soundcard systems. Joel hesitates to call it jazz, although no-one but a jazz player could hope to come up with compositions of such chordal complexity. Having said that, he's pretty fearless in tackling anything from Celtic and Eastern forms, to bowed guitar ˆ la Page, to fiery Spanish guitar workouts. Spanish guitar?
"I'd never played it before," he says matter-of-factly. "I borrowed one off George at Revolver - its like the real deal, a real fuckin' awesome $3000 Spanish guitar that had been lying around, so I borrowed that for a couple of days."
We're sitting in the last of the afternoon sun at the Mt Roskill house he shares with partner Charmaine, who the laid-back Mr Haines credits with getting 'Seniah LeoJ' (the Celtic sounding name is actually his own backwards!) off the ground.
"I mean if it was up to me ... it's just a self-indulgent piece of recording. It was Charmaine who made me finish it, otherwise it wouldn't be out there."
Out there it is, and so far the album is being very well received.
"People were asking for something (to be recorded) purely because of the compositions, so it was just to put the compositions down like that. But I ended up not doing most of them and making the rest up! I've made more money out of it already than Nathan. He sold 7,000 of his first CD and he hasn't seen one cent."
Self-indulgent? That's a pretty harsh call. The compositions are always structured even at their most out-there, and the fluidity, rhythmic precision and downright wizardry of Haines' playing makes 'Seniah LeoJ' a rewarding listen.
Other people clearly agree, with Japanese and Italian distributors snapping up the album, thanks to the contacts of young jazz pianist/marketing machine Mark de Clive-Lowe.
"They've got the album and they all like it, so they're just looking for an angle, you know, what to do with it."
As a guitarist fully conversant in both jazz and rock idioms, I'm interested to know if he ever finds rock structures limiting.
"I actually find jazz guitar more limiting than rock guitar, because I was brought up on jazz right, and jazz is so (holds hands inches apart) like that, but rock guitar, the boundaries are like that (expansive gesture). You can basically do anything. You can use so many different sounds, but you know, if you're going to actually call yourself a jazz guitarist, you play the guitar into the amp and that's it. There's like 'this set of chords' and 'this set of progressions'. Everything is formatted like that, whereas rock guitar, you can make horrible noises and shit - do whatever you like."
Bowed guitar as pioneered by Jimmy Page would definitely fit in the "whatever you like" category, a technique he came across through his involvement in the Enzep Led Zeppelin tribute show. Despite the seamless orchestral beauty of the tracks featuring the violin bow, Haines assures me it was anything but simple getting the finished result.
"There's a fuck of a lot of editing in there, but because I've never used MIDI on the computer I sort of got quite good at editing pieces of audio.
"With the string sounds - they're all violin bowed, and it's impossible to get a whole take. Like when you're pushing down on the strings (with the bow), it goes out of tune, so I had get one decent note from each stroke, layer it all to make a chord and then chop those all into the sequence of the song. It's a pain in the arse really!"
As satisfying (or painful) as this composing and recording lark may be, a musician has got to eat, and Haines' ability to fearlessly tackle any style has made him quite the handyman in the world of the ubiquitous jingle: "I make my living out of sessions - at least a couple a week. I do a lot for Murray (Grindlay, jingle king), the odd one for Jim Hall, there's always something to do. I've been doing it for so long that I'm alright now, you know? There's always something that somebody wants me to do, which suits me because the gigging situation is just horrible!"
Gigs or not, Joel Haines keeps coaxing amazing music out of his George Benson with such consistency that he has to re-fret it every year, this also being a symptom of his refusal to settle for the bland plunk of the jazzer's favourite flat-wound strings. You've got to admire the guy's attitude - laid-back, definitely cool, decidedly jazz in a rock kind of way. Watch out for his next project, an in-progress album of "hardcore dance" tracks, which will no doubt force us to revise yet again how we should perceive this super-gifted young guitarist.
Review of 'SeniaH LeoJ'
Joel Haines has an impeccable pedigree, is guitarist to the stars (Annie Crummer, Tim Finn, Strawpeople, Stellar and many more) and one of the most inventive technicians on the guitar I've heard in a long while. This recording is 'just guitar' and once we get the clever tricks and effecty bits out of the way (bowed guitar, mega-wide stereo chorus, fretboard percussion and so on) we arrive at some beautiful compositions.
Another reminder comes in the form of his debut solo album 'Seniah LeoJ', recorded at home using Logic Audio and Audiowerk Soundcard systems. Joel hesitates to call it jazz, although no-one but a jazz player could hope to come up with compositions of such chordal complexity. Having said that, he's pretty fearless in tackling anything from Celtic and Eastern forms, to bowed guitar ˆ la Page, to fiery Spanish guitar workouts. Spanish guitar?
"I'd never played it before," he says matter-of-factly. "I borrowed one off George at Revolver - its like the real deal, a real fuckin' awesome $3000 Spanish guitar that had been lying around, so I borrowed that for a couple of days."
We're sitting in the last of the afternoon sun at the Mt Roskill house he shares with partner Charmaine, who the laid-back Mr Haines credits with getting 'Seniah LeoJ' (the Celtic sounding name is actually his own backwards!) off the ground.
"I mean if it was up to me ... it's just a self-indulgent piece of recording. It was Charmaine who made me finish it, otherwise it wouldn't be out there."
Out there it is, and so far the album is being very well received.
"People were asking for something (to be recorded) purely because of the compositions, so it was just to put the compositions down like that. But I ended up not doing most of them and making the rest up! I've made more money out of it already than Nathan. He sold 7,000 of his first CD and he hasn't seen one cent."
Self-indulgent? That's a pretty harsh call. The compositions are always structured even at their most out-there, and the fluidity, rhythmic precision and downright wizardry of Haines' playing makes 'Seniah LeoJ' a rewarding listen.
Other people clearly agree, with Japanese and Italian distributors snapping up the album, thanks to the contacts of young jazz pianist/marketing machine Mark de Clive-Lowe.
"They've got the album and they all like it, so they're just looking for an angle, you know, what to do with it."
As a guitarist fully conversant in both jazz and rock idioms, I'm interested to know if he ever finds rock structures limiting.
"I actually find jazz guitar more limiting than rock guitar, because I was brought up on jazz right, and jazz is so (holds hands inches apart) like that, but rock guitar, the boundaries are like that (expansive gesture). You can basically do anything. You can use so many different sounds, but you know, if you're going to actually call yourself a jazz guitarist, you play the guitar into the amp and that's it. There's like 'this set of chords' and 'this set of progressions'. Everything is formatted like that, whereas rock guitar, you can make horrible noises and shit - do whatever you like."
Bowed guitar as pioneered by Jimmy Page would definitely fit in the "whatever you like" category, a technique he came across through his involvement in the Enzep Led Zeppelin tribute show. Despite the seamless orchestral beauty of the tracks featuring the violin bow, Haines assures me it was anything but simple getting the finished result.
"There's a fuck of a lot of editing in there, but because I've never used MIDI on the computer I sort of got quite good at editing pieces of audio.
"With the string sounds - they're all violin bowed, and it's impossible to get a whole take. Like when you're pushing down on the strings (with the bow), it goes out of tune, so I had get one decent note from each stroke, layer it all to make a chord and then chop those all into the sequence of the song. It's a pain in the arse really!"
As satisfying (or painful) as this composing and recording lark may be, a musician has got to eat, and Haines' ability to fearlessly tackle any style has made him quite the handyman in the world of the ubiquitous jingle: "I make my living out of sessions - at least a couple a week. I do a lot for Murray (Grindlay, jingle king), the odd one for Jim Hall, there's always something to do. I've been doing it for so long that I'm alright now, you know? There's always something that somebody wants me to do, which suits me because the gigging situation is just horrible!"
Gigs or not, Joel Haines keeps coaxing amazing music out of his George Benson with such consistency that he has to re-fret it every year, this also being a symptom of his refusal to settle for the bland plunk of the jazzer's favourite flat-wound strings. You've got to admire the guy's attitude - laid-back, definitely cool, decidedly jazz in a rock kind of way. Watch out for his next project, an in-progress album of "hardcore dance" tracks, which will no doubt force us to revise yet again how we should perceive this super-gifted young guitarist.
Joel Haines has an impeccable pedigree, is guitarist to the stars (Annie Crummer, Tim Finn, Strawpeople, Stellar and many more) and one of the most inventive technicians on the guitar I've heard in a long while. This recording is 'just guitar' and once we get the clever tricks and effecty bits out of the way (bowed guitar, mega-wide stereo chorus, fretboard percussion and so on) we arrive at some beautiful compositions.
Sort of Acoustic Alchemy meets Pat Metheny. Haines is at his best with the meandering solo lones over his solid rhythm guitar playing, cleverly avoiding the 'Espresso' trap while neatly capturing the cafe mood. The sheer range of guitars and guitar styles alone is impressive.
If you're going to listen to this recording properly you have to do it in small bites as there's quite a lot of it and it deserves to be brought out of the background where it sits a little too comfortably. - Mike Moroney
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