Jon Hassell at 81

Source: Billboard.

A half century into an odyssey that’s seen him work with musical prime movers such as Terry Riley and Brian Eno while pioneering his own distinct lane of so-called fourth world music, composer-trumpeter Jon Hassell is still active and vital at 81. His latest album, Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume 1), finds rhythms from around the globe (courtesy gamelan, udu drums and more) grounding meditative electronic soundscapes while his trumpet floats in and out of the ambient proceedings, with melodies emerging like images in shifting cloud patterns that disappear just as quickly as they become identifiable. (With that in mind, it’s fitting the album is dedicated to late painter Mati Klarwein, the ingenious artist whose work appeared on the cover of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and Santana’s Abraxas.)