Jon Hassell

Jon Hassell Has a new album!

Ah, this is big news for me...I love hassells music, and I think Marifa Street is a wonderful band!

To that end..I have purchased all of Hassells work as well as Mr. Rick Cox, a frequent contributor to Hassells projects. I highly recommend Mr. Cox's solo atmospherics as well....

I currently have copies of the following for sale at AMAZON.

Sulla Strada (out of print)
The Million Dollar Hotel
Power Spot
Dressing for pleasure
The Surgeon of the night sky..
OST (score) Trespass


25 YEARS AFTER his last ECM recording, the highly-influential Power Spot (recorded in 1983/84), Jon Hassell returns to the label with a new album—issued to coincide with the trumpeter’s first US tour in two decades.

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street takes its title from a line from a 13th century poem by Jalaluddin Rumi:

Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.
I took it as a sign to start singing.
Falling up into the bowl of sky.

The striking, almost surreally-vivid image (in Coleman Barks’ contemporary translation) seems to speak to Hasssell’s aural re-imaginings. His own ‘singing’ opens up new angles of vision, as his very vocal trumpet lines are reframed in works that contrast, combine, or melt together aspects of ancient and hypermodern idioms in a musical meta-language which can embrace sounds from all the compass points, sounds of the city, sounds of the natural world. In the past Hassell’s termed his personal genre Fourth World: by any name inspirational, its implications have registered with pop and rap and jazz artists as well as classical chamber musicians and filmmakers... And purely as an instrumentalist, Hassell’s influence has been widely felt, too. Nils Petter Molvaer , Arve Henriksen and Paolo Fresu are but three ECM-associated trumpeters who acknowledge a debt to the liquid tone and weightless, floating quality of Jon Hassell’s trumpet improvisations, and to his pioneering use of electronics in tandem with his horn.

Hassell describes the music of Last night the moon as “a continuous piece, almost symphonic, with a cinematic construction” and drifting “clouds made out of many motifs”. Core material is drawn from a session at Studios La Buisonne near Avignon in April 2008, with detail added in Los Angeles in November and December. Live recordings from Courtrais, Belgium and London, as well as a remix of a piece originally created for a Wim Wenders movie, are also integrated into the atmospheric, filmic flow, along with short samples snared throughout 2008.

Jon Hassell: “The word ‘montage’ pops out of my memory bank...Not only does it describe the little montages that serve as transitions between longer pieces (themselves montages of motifs that keep reappearing in new contexts) but the music presented here is a montage of the last years of concerts and the changing cast of the group I call Maarifa Street—all musicians who have contributed their personalities—the way an actor does to a film—to this living, morphing process that occasionally gets set down as a ‘record’.”

Jon Hassell was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and grew up with ears alert to divergent aspects of the jazz tradition, one early influence including Maynard Ferguson’s “stratospheric” trumpeting with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. While studying at the Eastman School of Music Hassell became increasingly interested in serial music and more experimental expressions of the new music avant-garde, in the mid-60s travelling to Cologne to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Returning to New York in 1967 he met and befriended Terry Riley. Hassell played on Riley’s landmark recording In C, and was introduced by him to La Monte Young with whose Dream House project he toured through the 1970s. An encounter with the music of Indian singer Pandit Pran Nath proved pivotal. Hassell studied extensively with Pran Nath, subsequently incorporating vocal inflections of raga into his trumpet playing, developing a new style for his instrument and his music as a whole. Vernal Equinox (1977) laid down the matrix of the idiosyncratic yet wide-open idiom Hassell has continued to develop and redefine over the last three decades: “My aim was to make a music that was vertically integrated in such a way that at any cross-sectional moment you were not able to pick a single element out as being from a particular country or genre of music.”

In 1986 Brian Eno, a frequent collaborator, would observe that “Jon Hassell is an inventor of new forms of music—of new ideas of what music could be and how it might be made. His work is drawn from his whole cultural experience without fear or prejudice. It is an optimistic, global vision that suggests not only possible musics but possible futures.” An enticing proposal for the most diverse musicians, Hassell’s collaborators over the years have ranged from Peter Gabriel to the Kronos Quartet, Ry Cooder and Bono, and his trumpet performances have featured on recordings with Björk, Baaba Maal, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ani di Franco, David Sylvian, the Talking Heads and many others.

Additionally his playing and/or music has been heard in numerous films including The Last Temptation of Christ, Trespass, Wild Side, Greenwich Mean Time, Angel Eyes, Owning Mahowny, Million Dollar Hotel and more.

Jon Hassell’s albums as a leader are Vernal Equinox (1977), Earthquake Island (1978), Fourth World Vol 1: Possible Musics (1980), Fourth World Vol. 2 : Dream Theory In Malaya (1981), Aka-Darbari-Java / Magic Realism (1983), Power Spot (1986), The Surgeon Of The Nightsky Restores Dead Things By The Power Of Sound (1987), Flash Of The Spirit (1988), City: Works Of Fiction (1990), Dressing For Pleasure (1994), Sulla Strada (1995), The Vertical Collection (1997), Fascinoma (1999), Maarifa Street / Magic Realism 2 (2005), Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street (2009).

Since 2005 he has led the collective Maarifa Street, with whom he will perform on his February 2009 tour. Dates are:

February 5: Columbus, OH (Wexner Center)
February 6: Knoxville, TN (Bijou Theater)
February 8: Philadelphia, PA (World Cafe Live)
February 10: New York, NY (Zankel Hall)
February 12: Minneapolis, MN (Walker Arts Center)
February 13: Los Angeles, CA (Royce Hall)
February 14: Vancouver Jazz Festival (Chan Center for Performing Arts)

http://www.jonhassell.com/


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hassell


Jon Hassell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jon Hassell
Born March 22, 1937 (1937-03-22) (age 71)
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Genre(s) World music
Instrument(s) Trumpet

Website www.jonhassell.com

Jon Hassell (born March 22, 1937) is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.




Life and career

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Hassell received his Master's degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. During this time he became involved in European serial music, especially the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen, and so after finishing his studies at Eastman, he enrolled in the Cologne Course for New Music for two years (founded and directed by Stockhausen). Hassell returned to the U.S. in 1967, where he met Terry Riley in Buffalo, New York and performed on the first recording of Riley's seminal work In C in 1968. He pursued his PhD in musicology in Buffalo and performed in La Monte Young's "Dream House" (aka Theatre of Eternal Music) in New York City.

On his return to Buffalo in the early 1970s, Hassell was introduced to the music of Indian Pandit Pran Nath, a specialist in the Kiranic style of singing. Hassell, Young, Marian Zazeela (Young's wife) and Riley went together to India to study with Nath. His work with Nath awoke his appetite for world music, and on the album Vernal Equinox, he used his trumpet to imitate the vocal techniques of Nath (treated with various electronic effects) where he stated:

"From 1973 up until then I was totally immersed in playing raga on the trumpet. I wanted the physical dexterity to be able to come into a room and be able to do something that nobody else in the world could do. My aim was to make a music that was vertically integrated in such a way that at any cross-sectional moment you were not able to pick a single element out as being from a particular country or genre of music."

In 1980, he collaborated with Brian Eno on the album Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics. Hassell's 1981 release, Dream Theory in Malaya, led to a performance at the first World of Music, Arts and Dance (WOMAD) Festival, organized by Peter Gabriel. In the late 1980s, Hassell contributed to Gabriel's Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, the soundtrack album for Martin Scorsese's film, The Last Temptation of Christ. Hassell and Pete Scaturro composed the electronic theme music for the television show The Practice.

Style

Hassell coined the term "Fourth World" to describe his musical style, as expressed both in his trumpet playing and in his approach to composition. This musical conception combines the philosophy and techniques of minimalism with Asian and African styles, and relies heavily on the use of electronic instruments. Critics of Hassell's style have noted its incorporation of New Age and world music styles, but have also detected the influence of Miles Davis, particularly Davis' use of electronics, modal harmony and understated lyricism.[1] Both on record and during live performances, Hassell makes use of traditional western instruments--keyboards, bass, electric guitar, and percussion--to create modal, hypnotic grooves, over which he plays microtonally-inflected trumpet phrases in the style of Nath's Kiranic vocals.[2]



Jon Hassell
Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street



Jon Hassell trumpet, keyboard
Peter Freeman bass, percussion, guitar
Jan Bang live sampling
Jamie Muhoberac keyboard, drums
Rick Cox guitar
Jon Hassell violin
Eivind Aarset guitar
Helge Andreas Norbakken drums
Pete Lockett drums
J. A. Deane live sampling
Steve Shehan percussion

Aurora
Time And Place
Abu Gil
Last Night The Moon Came
Clairvoyance
Courtrais
Scintilla
Northline
Blue Period
Light On Water

Recorded November 2008
ECM 2077

25 years after his highly influential “Power Spot” album, Jon Hassell returns to ECM with his collective Maarifa Street and some spacious Fourth World dub-montage music, his uniquely vocal trumpet sailing forth into mysterious soundscapes. Jon Hassell describes “Last night the moon” as “a continuous piece, almost symphonic, with a cinematic construction” and drifting “clouds made out of many motifs”. Core material is drawn from a session at Studios La Buissonne near Avignon in April 2008, with detail added in Los Angeles in November and December. Live recordings from Courtrais, Belgium and London, as well as a remix of a piece originally created for a Wim Wenders movie, are also integrated into the atmospheric, filmic flow, along with short samples snared throughout 2008.

This album can be ordered in the USA from February 10th and via the ECM webshop from March 20th

ECM Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street PAGE

http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/ECM/2000/2077.php?cat=&we_start=0&acat=Artists%2FHassell+Jon%23%23Jon+Hassell

ECM power spot page

http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/ECM/1300/1327.php