Jon Hassell - Magic Realism, Vol. 2: Maarifa Street (2005)

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Jon Hassell - Magic Realism, Vol. 2: Maarifa Street (2005)

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Each item in trumpeter Jon Hassell's discography, from 1977's Vernal Equinox (Lovely Music) through a string of albums in the 1980s and 1990s (including the two Fourth World outings on EG, Power Spot on ECM, and City: Works of Fiction on Opal) to the sleek instrumental hip-hop of 1994's Dressing for Pleasure (on Warner), is so exquisitely recorded and meticulously crafted and fussed over that the idea of a live Hassell album might at first sight seem alarming. But though the basic material for six of these seven tracks was indeed recorded in concert in Paris, Montreal, and Milan between 2000 and 2003, Hassell, true to form, has painstakingly reworked the source recordings, incorporating new material and "migrating" some elements from one performance to another (comparing the two versions of "Open Secret" is a fascinating exercise in itself). Indeed, if the booklet didn't tell you that "New Gods" was recorded in a studio in L.A., you'd never guess. Hassell's horn is as silky and understated as ever, and his band, including bassist Peter Freeman, keyboard whiz John Beasley, and guitarist Rick Cox (vocalist extraordinaire Dhafer Youssef guests on the tracks recorded in Paris), is the model of precision and good taste throughout. Hassell's work is often misleadingly billed as new age, but despite its accessibility it's far richer and multi-layered than most of the music tagged with that unfortunate epithet. Maarifa Street is a work of extraordinary compositional craftsmanship by a modern master.

Review by Dan Warburton, Allmusic.com

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.

Review by John Diliberto, Amazon.com

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Jon Hassell - Magic Realism, Vol. 2: Maarifa Street (2005)

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Jon Hassell - Magic Realism, Vol. 2: Maarifa Street (2005)

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