Album of the Week: John Hassell - Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street

Over the course of three decades, trumpeter and minimalist composer John Hassell has become a figure difficult to describe. Though his works are often compared to Miles Davis because of his extensive use of editing and electronic treatments in post-production, his reputation stretches far beyond that of just an electric-jazz studio composer. Hassell has studied under the avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, worked with Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Nath, played on the first recording of Terry Riley's seminal composition In C, and has collaborated with Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, the Talking Heads, La Monte Young, David Sylvian, and Ry Cooder. He has tread the waters of jazz to avant-garde to New Wave, while his minimalist compositions have always veered towards the ambient, placing the importance of texture and space over melody and rhythm. And then there is the "Fourth World", a term coined by Hassell to describe his unique mix of minimalist techniques and amalgamation of electronics to traditional Asian and African styles of playing. Hassell continues to experiment with primitivist/futurist sounds on his latest full length Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street. Though I’m as sick as the next person of jazz being labeled “easy-listening” music these days, there is something very relaxing and ethereal about this release. Perhaps more indebted to Eno than any other artist, Last Night is filled with the type of atmospheric soundscapes and deep textures that set-apart works like Music for Airports and Apollo. The album opens with the glow of “Aurora”, a crescendoing piece that slowly reveals itself with the growing intensity of Hassell's playing. It’s follow up, the exceptional “Time and Place” is propelled by a snaky-slow funk rhythm, while the sounds of violin, guitar, and organ fade in and out of the backdrop. The eleven minute title track is perhaps the best summary of Hassell’s signature sound, as his trumpet is treated with so much echo that it becomes indistinguishable from its surrounding accompaniment. This is gaseous music that shifts, fluxes, and never limits itself. Thirty years on Jon Hassell continues to make breath-taking and groundbreaking music, reinventing the genre that birthed him, and blurring the line between what is jazz and what is not.

RIYL: Miles Davis, Brian Eno, Stockhausen

Listen To: Aurora, Time and Place, Last Night the Moon Came Dropping its Clothes on the Street