Album Review

Jon Hassell
Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes…
(ECM)

Trumpeter Jon Hassell is 71, but his music sounds timeless—and
it does weird things to your sense of space.

If you’ve heard the first recording of Terry Riley’s In C,
Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ, or
Talking Heads’ “Houses in Motion,” you’ve experienced Hassell’s
serenely attenuated trumpet style. Situated in a hazy nexus between
jazz and ambient, Hassell’s sound has been dubbed by the man himself as
“Fourth World,” a supple hybrid of Asian and African musics filtered
through minimalist composition (Hassell studied under Riley’s
Kiranic-singing guru Pandit Pran Nath) and marked by electronically
treated trumpet.

As exemplified on albums like Fourth World Vol. 1:
Possible Musics (with Brian Eno), Aka Darbari Java, and
Fourth World Vol. 2: Dream Theory in Malaya, the most
distinctive facet of Hassell’s music is his horn, which variously
emulates exotic birdsong and the cries of rare species of primates in
the throes of woe, ecstasy, and Zen calm. Hassell has carved out a
unique tonal palette with an instrument that speaks sotto voce in alien
tongues.

With Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the
Street, Hassell captures a hushed, gorgeous stillness that recalls
Miles Davis at his most languid. The disc slyly fades in like a
cinematic dream sequence with “Aurora,” its tinkling keyboards and
gleaming trumpet oozing subtle mystery. It’s like some new strain of
noirish space jazz for a race blessed with low blood pressure. “Time
and Place” reveals Hassell’s unparalleled skill for simultaneously
evoking tranquility and tension, as Peter Freeman’s velvety bass
plunges contrast with Hassell’s glimmering, mutated brass wisps and
sighs. The 13-minute “Abu Gil” traces a subliminal, chilled Arabic-funk
line in the sand. “Blue Period” is the epitome of diaphanously drifting
cool jazz, the aural equivalent of a slow dissolve. The rest of Last
Night occupies that insomniac mind-space in which feelings and
thoughts intensify, and you can’t help waxing existential and
libidinous.

Even at this late date, Hassell is exploring new modes, creating
unlikely hybrid styles, and stirring emotions in novel ways. He is an
exceptional anomaly to the rule of aging musicians yielding diminishing
returns.