Word Music Author:Paul Haines By the time writer Paul Haines passed away at the age of 70 in January 2003, he had found more ways to interact with music than any one might imagine. As a poet, he created the abstract libretto "Escalator Over the Hill" for Carla Bley, and he heard his words from works like "Darn It!" and "A Beautiful Western Saddle" set to music by a bevy of ... more » collaborators from the creative edges of jazz and rock. Haines’s essays on musicians such as Albert Ayler, Paul Bley, and Evan Parker went far beyond the expectations of criticism to become a kind of music themselves— mysterious, witty and deeply moving. That musical element extends to Haines's experimental fictions, too, where sounds, rhythms, and meanings collide. Word Music: The Paul Haines Reader, is the first volume to bring together Haines's writing in all its quirky, complex, brilliant, and creative breadth. It ranges from 1955 to 2002 to include Haines's uncollected fictions, a wealth of his epigrammatic poems and lyrics, and his extraordinary writings on music. Collected together, this book allows a major talent to come into full view.« less