Sax master
Andy Haas was just brilliant as a member of the original Canadian
pop group Martha & The Muffins. Especially on their first two
albums, Haas embellished that band’s romantic New Wave rock sound
with his jazzy alto sax honks and riffs. That was 1980, and now 29
years later, Haas is back with a new CD entitled No Wave Au GoGo
with his Downtown NYC instro jazz trio Radio I-Ching. In his mystically
titled outfit, Haas and company make jazz for rock music fans. Far
from mainstream jazz as you can get with still being “jazzy”,
Haas, guitarist Don Fiorino and drummer Dee Pop take
it out to the cutting edge of No Wave Jazz. Somewhere between the
avant edge that Haas honed his chops with in Martha & The Muffins
and his jazz influences, from Monk to Howard Arlen (a definite highlight
is their cover of Arlen’s “Judgment Day”), No Wave
Au GoGo is one cool round trip ticket indeed. Fans may also want
to give a listen to the other band Haas and Fiorino have called The
Hanuman Sextet. On that group's 2009 CD release of 9 Meals From
Anarchy, Haas and Fiorino take the Radio I-Ching sound and vision
even deeper into the realm of avant jazz with much success and excitement.
www.myspace.com/RadioIChingNewYork
MUSIC
WEB EXPRESS 3000 presents ANDY HAAS and DON FIORINO
of RADIO I-CHING
Guitars Center Stage
Guitarists (and Sax players!) making waves in the music world, their
new recordings and gear!
Musical Background
ANDY HAAS: I was living in Toronto back in the mid-seventies,
and there was a very lively improvised music scene. After hearing
Evan Parker and Anthony Braxton play solo concerts, I rented an alto
sax for $5 a month and taught myself to play. My first gig was in
Hull, Quebec in a free improv band that had John Oswald, now of Plunderphonics
fame, playing sax in it. Our review in the local paper the next day
had the headline “Ugly Noise, Hurt Ears” - a quote from
the film “Tarzan’s New York Adventure”. Now I live
in New York, truly a daily adventure...
DON FIORINO: I taught myself the guitar back in 1963, with the
intentions of playing bass guitar, and proceeded to play rhythm guitar
in a local rhythm & blues band. Having an interest in blues and
after seeing some footage of Bukkha White playing slide, on his lap,
I became obsessed with the slide and bottleneck guitar. Other background
influences include, rock, folk/country, Indian, jazz and improvised
music.
New CD
ANDY HAAS: Both Radio I-Ching’s No Wave Au
Go Go and The Hanuman Sextet’s 9 Meals From Anarchy
were recorded by Marc Urselli at East Side Sound in NYC. Both recordings
were done live, no overdubs, and Marc got a great sound from all the
instruments, and there is quite a variety! Both CD’s have a sound
character that works to help the music have an identity of it’s
own.
DON FIORINO: Playing with Andy and his sax over the past 9 years,
I’ve developed phrasings that are more hornlike than guitar.
Playing with Radio I-Ching has allowed me to explore and develop a
style which incorporates my interest in the varied genres that I mentioned
earlier. Also it allows me to utilize a variety of instruments beyond
the guitar which contributes to Radio I-Ching’s unique sound.
Favorite Guitars and Saxophones
ANDY HAAS: I played alto sax for many years, then I
acquired a curved soprano. This became my horn of choice. It had the
voice I was looking for, a different tonal quality than the straight
soprano, which I had never felt comfortable playing. It has a very
sweet sound, but can cut through when you want it to. in some situations,
I play the horn though effects, usually an Electro-Harmonix 16 second
delay and a Digitech Space Station. It’s difficult in live situations
to get a good blend of the acoustic horn and the electronics. Depends
on the particulars at the gig, PA, Sound person, monitors, time for
sound check, the room, etc.
DON FIORINO: The instrument lineup that I play on our CD’s
comprise my main axes; 1980 Gibson SG, Godin Glissentar, Fender lap
steel, Saga C scale Banjo, 4 string electric mandolin and a Moroccan
Lotar. My pedal arrangement is pretty simple; Boss DS-1 Distortion,
MXR Phase 90 and Vox Wah pedal. The guitar strings are D’Addario
XL 10’s and XL Chrome 13’s on the lap steels. My SG is tuned
in a nonstandard tuning developed while playing with the sax. It helps
avoid cliché riffs and patterns. The other instruments are
in various open tunings. My favorite guitars include two handmade
Del Pilar classical guitars, one steel and one nylon string, built
by William Del Pilar Jr. of Brooklyn, NY. Also for bottleneck, a pre-1920
Stella.
Musical Influences
ANDY HAAS: I’m drawn to players that have worked
to create their own sound and playing language. Players that you can
recognize instantly because they have such a personal sound, and create
their own world inside the music. Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Paul
Desmond, Steve Lacy have all been big influences that I heard in Toronto
when I first started playing. Also, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra’s
Arkestra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cecil Taylor, and Derek Bailey,
all of whom came to play in Toronto as well. Now I listen to a lot
of folk music's, these days a lot of traditional Korean and Arabic
music. I like the old recordings, when I can find them, in many cases
recorded on location. There is an emotional quality in the music,
a directness and lack of artifice that came from the recording medium
being something new. Whether or not the artists realized these recordings
would live on long after they were gone, their spirit lives on in
their music. I've read about a number of guitarists who have talked
about trying to sound like sax players on their guitars, it was mostly
like Coltrane. I often thought about it the other way around...how
could i try and sound like Hendrix on my sax.
I think that was part of my interest in using effects, wah-wah and
distortion don't work so well on the horn, except for the wah on Ian
Underwood's sax solo on Chunga's Revenge, but the speeding
up/slowing down and changing of directions (forward/reverse) of phrases
or melodies, and more severe pitch bending sometimes give me that
sense of entering into Hendrix's sphere of sonic influence, and of
course I loved the way he played the blues with a psychedelic twist,
feedback sustain and bending notes. Circular breathing, which allows
me to play without stopping for a breath, is my way of getting a kind
of feedback/sustain. And I love slide players, like Son House, where
you can here the sound of the slide on the strings and that dirty
sound. Don has that in his playing, among other talents that he brings
to all his strings! We have developed a great rapport playing together
(give a listen to our first disc together, a duet disc called Death
Don't Have No Mercy) over the years, and now that's working out
with Dee as a trio. Also, the first rock 'n roll gig i remember seeing
was a double bill of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and Ted Nugent
at the old Eastown in Detroit. Must have been in 1971. The Captain
played his straight soprano sax into a mike stuffed in the bell and
had a pick up drilled in on the neck just below the mouthpiece as
well. Loudest damn horn I had ever heard, a formative experience.
DON FIORINO: Bukkha White, John Fahey, Blind Willie Johnson, Derek
Bailey, Elmore James, Sonny Sharrock, Ry Cooder, Muddy Waters, Ali
Farke Toure, John McLaughlin, Hamza El-Din (oud), Mississippi Fred
McDowell, Furry Lewis, Frank Zappa...to name a few guitarists. I used
to play bottleneck with Carolina Slim (Elijah Staley), who taught
me a big lesson. He said I played the slide too clean and that I had
to learn to play “dirty”. Albums: Memphis Swamp Jam
(various Delta bluesmen, live), Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
and Requia by John Fahey.
Web Site
Website: www.myspace.com/radioichingnewyork
e-mail: Radioi-ching@earthlink.net
