New Zealand musician Nathan Haines Photo: Supplied
Six years after throat surgery damaged his vocal cords, speaking doesn't come easy to New Zealand jazz icon Nathan Haines.
These days Haines says his most effective instrument for "getting emotion across" is his beloved saxophone.
"I put the horn in my mouth, it just blows out. It's like I've got a fountain of music coming out of the end of my horn," he tells Charlotte Ryan.
At 52, Haines says he no longer makes music "from a place of ego" and the songs on his new album Notes are truthful and unfiltered.
"I'm not John Coltrane and I never will be. I can only be myself and I can only play my life and my story."
Notes - which is Haines' 11th album - was coproduced by his "very, very special" friend and collaborator Phil Asher, a British DJ and music producer who died in 2021.
He's amazed that DJs still play tracks from Sound Travels and Squire For Hire - the two pioneering jazz-fusion albums Haines made with Asher in London in the early 2000s.
Back then, the pair wanted to make music that they felt was "timeless", Haines says, and many people have told him they succeeded.
After Squire For Hire was completed in 2003, he and Asher stayed friends. In 2017, after Haines was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and had a large tumour removed from his throat, Asher called from London to check on him every day.
British DJ and music producer Phil Asher with New Zealand musician Nathan Haines Photo: @nathan.haines
In 2018, after multiple radiotherapy sessions and follow-up operations, Haines announced he was cancer-free.
In the years that followed, he and Asher - "an incredible beat-maker" - started making music again with the goal of putting "a new slant" on their earlier sound.
But before the album that became Notes was anywhere near finished, Asher died at 55 after suffering a heart attack in his sleep.
At 52, despite the loss of his dear friend and some physical capacities, Haines feels like he's right now at the peak of his creative powers.
"I'm playing and feeling better than I've ever felt my life. Seriously, I'm so in touch with my creativity and as a musician, There's no doubt in my mind… It's just very true for me. There's no filter."
After years of performing, addiction and cancer treatment, he feels like a totally different person to the young man who released the hit debut album Shift Left in 1995 - and there's still more evolution to come.
"I've had a life and music and it just keeps on going. I'm just amazed I'm still here talking to you."
