Main page » A-Z Artists » H » Hassell, Jon

Hassell, Jon

Composer/trumpeter Jon Hassell is the visionary creator of a style of music he describes as Fourth World, a mysterious, unique hybrid of music both ancient and digital, composed and improvised, Eastern and Western. After composition studies and university degrees in the USA, he went to Europe to study electronic and serial music with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Several years later, he returned to New York where his first recordings were made with minimalist masters La Monte Young and Terry Riley, through whom he met the Hindustani raga master, Pandit Pran Nath, and embarked on a lifelong quest to transmute his teacher's Kirana vocal mastery into a new trumpet sound and style. In the last two decades, he has recorded albums which have, over the years, become so widely appropriated that many of their innovations have become woven anonymously into the texture of contemporary music high and low.

Jon Hassell + Farafina - Flash of the Spirit

Artist: Jon Hassell + Farafina
P: 1988
Perhaps the most acoustic of all Jon Hassell albums, "Flash of the Spirit" unites him with the African rhythm group Farafina, who provide a vivid rhythmic foundation for Hassell's trumpeted meanderings. A single, sustained note starts the proceedings and, one by one, awakens the other intruments, which pulse, rise, fall and return throughout the hour-long album. The second half seems like a more pensive restating of the first half--that is, until "Blue(Prayer)," which closes the album. "Blue" is twelve minutes of hypnotic dreamtime propelled by a two-note bass line that simulates the deep breathing of a mountain. It's all a vicarious experiencing of indigenous human life; it is surprising not to hear more of Hassell on movie soundtracks. An earthy harbinger of "City: Works of Fiction," "Flash of the Spirit" is a hard-to-find jewel in Hassell's amazing body of work.

13,90 EUR

incl. 19% tax excl. Shipping costs

Jon Hassell - Power Spot

Artist: Jon Hassell
P: 1984
Jon Hassell was at the top of his form on this landmark CD. You'll never hear anything like it. For the uninitiated, Jon Hassell plays the trumpet and was highly influenced by Brian Eno, Indian music, Miles Davis, and the minimalist school. He made a series of albums, including the landmark collaboration with Brian Eno, Fourth World: Possible Musics Vol I, in which his trumpet was electronically processed, to essentially create an entirely new sound. This CD provides the tightest and most musical setting for this unique approach.

14,90 EUR

incl. 19% tax excl. Shipping costs

Jon Hassell - The Surgeon of the Nightsky...

Artist: Jon Hassell
P: 1987
Uncomparable to anything else really, although it DOES remind me somewhat of Brian Enos AMBIENT series from the late 70's (!!!). Eno & Hassell "assembled" and "processed" this music together. And there is maybe a distant echo of "Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Jou Jouka" to be heard, and the liner notes to Jones album begin with, "Magic calls itself The Other Method for controlling matter and knowing space....". That seems fitting in relation to this music by Jon Hassell, he really does seem to have his very own conception of matter (instruments/sounds) & space (composition) here. Hard to believe that most of the time one is listening to a trumpet somewhere in these waves and clouds of sound. For as much as this is an ethereal misty daze, it still somehow retains a non stop driving ryhthm. It also reminds me a bit of one of my favorite unknown solo bass players, Jeff Turek, and his equally unique dealings with sound and space. "Surgeon of the Nightsky..." was originally recorded in 1985/86/87 and originally released in 1987. The wonderful surrealistic title comes from a poem by Ira Cohen, and the equally wonderful cover art is a painting titled "The Swamp", by Melissa Miller, done in 1983. This music is strangely, simultainiously relaxing and stimulating, ... quite uniquely excellent.

13,90 EUR

incl. 19% tax excl. Shipping costs

V/A - Ambient 3 The Music of Changes

Artist: Eno, Budd, Laswell, Irmin Schmidt u.a.
P: 1994
What was uptodate at the electronic scene way back in 1994 can be heard on this release by Virgin Records.

14,90 EUR

incl. 19% tax excl. Shipping costs

Show 1 to 4 (from a total of 4 products)