Although Fashionlines receives several
new CDs for review each month, it isn’t often that we find
one that we really like. Composer/trumpeter Jon Hassell has created a hybrid of
ancient and digital music he calls “Fourth
World”. His
theme for ABC’s The Practice has been hailed by TV
Guide as one of the fifty greatest themes in television history. Hassell has also collaborated with Ibrahim
Ferrer (Cuban superstar of Buena Vista Social Club), Ani DiFranco,
k.d. lang, Manhattan Transfer and Björk among others.
After university, Hassell went to Europe to
study electronic and serial music with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Several
years later, he returned to the US where his first minimalist recordings
with LaMonte Young and Terry Riley were made. The 1983 liner notes
for his Aka-Darbari-Java/Magic Realism describe
a technology-tradition balance resulting in a “coffee-colored classical music of the future”. Brian
Eno and Peter Gabriel, after working with Hassell, steered
the Fourth World idea into the avant-pop sphere, which has now
evolved into “electronica”, “new
age”, and “world music”.
Notable concert appearances have
included The Next Wave at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Serious
Fun at Lincoln Center,
La Foret Music in Tokyo,
the Berlin Jazz Festival, and the Paris Biennale. His
music has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and he has collaborated
on fashion presentations with Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo. He has composed for several dance companies,
notably Merce Cunningham, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and the
Netherlands Dance Theater. In addition, his music can be heard
in Wim Wender’s The
Million Dollar Hotel, in collaboration with Bono, Daniel
Lanois and Brian Eno.
His new CD, Maarifa Street / Magic Realism 2 is
now available. It
is mysterious, exotic and moving and unlike any music we have heard. Little
wonder all the trail blazers want to work with Jon Hassell.
Maarifa Street / Magic Realism 2
Jon Hassell
www.maarifastreet.com