Jon Hassell - Maarifa Street: Magic Realism, Vol. 2
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Artist: Jon HassellEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-05-17
Music Label: Nyen
Soundtracks:
- Divine S.O.S.
- Maarifa Street
- Warm Shift
- Open Secret (Paris)
- New Gods
- Darbari Bridge
- Open Secret (Milano)
Music reviews of Maarifa Street: Magic Realism, Vol. 2
Music Review: The continuing impact of Miles
Rating: 4 Stars
It's impossible for a trumpet player in the jazz, worldbeat, fusion, world jazz, or "interstitial" arenas not to have been influenced by Miles Davis, with one of the most obvious examples being Tim Hagans. Jon Hassell shows that influence as well, but at the same time moves things far beyond what Miles did.
It's not just the presence of musicians from different parts of the world that marks Hassell's music as different; after all, Miles had Indian musicians playing with him (and there's the recent "Miles from India" tribute double CD with both American and Indian musicians fusing their talents on some of the better Miles tracks). Hassell uses repetitive slow-groove rhythm patterns over which he improvises his electronically modified trumpet sounds that are sinuous, sensuous, hypnotic--he's creating a kind of surreal mesh of In a Silent Way and something new, different.
The two different versions of Open Secret on this album are interesting; on one, there's a Middle Eastern musician who contributes both vocal and oud tonalities. The other does not include this coloring; you can hear the same slow underneath rhythm pattern. This is a continuation of the Hassell of Fourth World and the first Magic Realism album and while there may be nothing startlingly new here, there is certainly enough of interest to mesmerize the listener.
It's probably in an effort to move beyond this seguing series that Hassell's more recent collaborative album, "The Tubes", is radically different; it's a collaboration with electronic music composer Michael Fahres and basically eschews world music influences.
Someone had mentioned or suggested a collaboration of Hassell and Bill Laswell. An intriguing prospect...but I doubt it would happen. I think they are in different "spaces". Yes, there is certainly heavy world music impact on music by both artists. But this is not a collaboration that strikes me as being likely.
Maarifa Street is, 3 years old, the album that Hassell still lists on his website as his most recent; it is, as a solo project. It will be interesting to see if and when he decides to do his next solo project how similar or different it will be from this engaging style he has developed.
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Description of Maarifa Street: Magic Realism, Vol. 2
Fourth World innovator Jon Hassell, in his first record since the 1999 audiophile classic, "Fascinoma" (which was produced by Ry Cooder), transforms three live concerts (Montreal, Milan, Paris) into an atmospheric masterwork - "Maarifa Street" ("maarifa" means "knowledge/wisdom" in Arabic). Hassell extends the Miles Davis-Gil Evans ambience into a setting where all the musics of the world meet, but instead of "world music," think "worldly music" - a sophisticated musical utopia, an urban neighborhood where families of many colors are welcomed: "Sketches of Spain", Indian raga, rippling electronica, North African vocal arabesques, "dub" reggae, minimalist "trance", just to name a few. (In a calculated understatement, Hassell collaborator Brian Eno said, "this sounds like really modern music.")In the title track, Hassell's unmistakable trumpet voice, multiplied digitally, sings a seductive (and ancient) melodic refrain, floating over a sea of microtronica detail and ambient sheepbells, anchored by a deep, throbbing dub bass - all creating a sonic picture like a scene from a "magic realism" novel. This theme of surreal fantasy is superbly illustrated in the amazing painting by Mati Klarwein ("Bitches Brew", "Abraxas") - a special surprise which awaits discovery on the inside of the package.
In an era of world fusions and unlikely global collaborations, Jon Hassell continues reformulating the alchemy of his Fourth World music in fascinating and original ways. Maarifa Street is his first electric album in some time, and it's a deliriously seductive brew of Miles Davis-meets-dub stuttered through sampled groove fractures. Drawn from live recordings made over the last few years, the album illustrates Hassell's gift for carving soundscapes in real time, laying his breathy, harmonized trumpet lines across an interior panorama of ambient voodoo jazz. Playing mostly with guitar mutant Rick Cox over deep dub bass lines from Peter Freeman, Hassell's music is fractal in its constant reinvention. The deeper you go, the more varied it becomes, as self-similar patterns are spun and shaped into ever more complex designs. Tunisian singer Dhafer Youssef adds his desert cries to Hassell's verdant mix on tracks like "Divine S.O.S." and "Open Secret." Although Maarifa Street's source material is live, the sound is studio-designed, with performances mixed, matched, and collaged in a fashion not unlike the cover by Abdul Mati Klarwein (who did Santana's Abraxas and Miles Davis's Bitches Brew). With an extreme stereo mix, instruments appear, shift, morph, and swirl, as if on a slo-mo carousel plopped into a global bazaar of the imagination. The subtitle of the album is Magic Realism 2, marking it as a sequel to Aka-Darbari-Java, Hassell's 1983 album of mosaic-like designs. But Maarifa Street is easier to grab onto, and the throbbing bass, programmed pulse fragments, and his innately melodic trumpet carry you through this strange world. --John Diliberto
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