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Jon HassellJon Hassell was (born March 22, 1937, Memphis, Tennessee). 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 LaMonte 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 11 highly influential, category-defeating solo 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. While the liner notes for his 1983 record Aka-Darbari-Java describe a technology-tradition balance resulting in a "'coffee-colored' classical music of the future", it was innovators in the field of pop such as Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel who after collaborations with Hassell steered the fourth world idea into the avant-pop sphere where it has since evolved into myriad forms of "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 Museum in Tokyo, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Paris Biennale, a Japan tour with Farafina, a traditional group of drummers and dancers from Burkina Faso and a spectacular appearance with eight Moroccan tribal groups at Expo 92 in Seville to celebrate Moroccan Independence Day. A European tour in November 1997 included sold-out performances at L'Opera de Nice and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Theatrical scores include Sulla Strada, created for the Venice Biennale, and Zangezi, directed by Peter Sellars. He has collaborated on presentations by fashion avant-gardists Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo and for choreographic works by Merce Cunningham and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. The Kronos Quartet commissioned and recorded his Pano da Costa. In 1996 The Netherlands Dance Theater commissioned Lurch a major, evening-length piece choreographed by Australian dance maverick Gideon Obarzanek to the music of Hassell, arranged and remixed for performance by two onstage DJs. Jon both appeared in, and did the score to Wim Wenders' last film, The Million Dollar Hotel, in collaboration with Bono, Daniel Lanois, and Brian Eno. Fascinoma, his newest album, produced by Ry Cooder, opens a surprising new chapter in Hassell's recordings: the Dogme-like simplicity of one (exceptional) microphone, one tape recorder and one beautifully resonant church space reveal a trumpet sound and style unlike any other. Jazz pianist Jacky Terrasson, classical Indian bansuri flute master, Ronu Majumdar and Ry's unmistakeable guitar sound fill the space in a glorious acoustic sound which has provoked unprecedented critical superlatives. The current visibility of the "e-jazz" phenomenon ("electronic jazz", integrating collage techniques of hip-hop) has brought renewed appreciation of Hassell's 1993 recording Dressing For Pleasure. This, along with the release of Fascinoma has inspired a new generation of European trumpet players: Erik Truffaz, Paolo Fresu, and Nils Petter Molvaer who all acknowledge the depth of his influence on their music. In April 2002, Jon Hassell led a group consisting of Senegalese world music superstar Baaba Maal, top DJ-Producer Howie B, and Miles Davis keyboardist John Beasley in a world premiere of new music at London's Barbican Centre. Recent Montreal, Milan and Paris concerts by Hassell's new group are the source for Maarifa Street his new recording (early 2005 release) merging the spontaneity of a live concert with the polish of a studio recording. Another appearance at the Montreal Jazz Festival in July 2004 features Hassell in "remix" mode with DJ Stratum, Paolo Fresu, Erik Truffaz and guest, Dhafer Youssef. In preparation: an experimental and highly personal website and a book, The North and South of You, a kind of handbook of ideas toward a personal and social paradise grown out of the years of cultivating a musical paradise with roots in the ideals of Fourth World. See also: Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, David Sylvian, Michael Brook Discography: - 1977 Vernal Equinox
- 1978 Earthquake Island
- 1980 Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics with Brian Eno
- 1981 Fourth World, Vol. 2: Dream Theory in Malaya
- 1982 Aka/Darbari/Java: Magic Realism
- 1986 Power Spot with Brian Eno / Daniel Lanois
- 1987 The Surgeon of the Nightsky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound
- 1988 Flash of the Spirit
- 1990 City: Works of Fiction
- 1994 Dressing for Pleasure
- 1999 Fascinoma
- 2005 Maarifa Street
Collaborations: - 2000 Hollow Bamboo (Ronu Majumdar-Bansuri)
Hassell, Jon
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