RIP Jon Hassell, creator of the Fourth World
A pillar of ambient music, creator of the Fourth World, influential composer Mr. Jon Hassell has left this world, aged 84.
A pillar of ambient music, creator of the Fourth World, influential composer Mr. Jon Hassell has left this world, aged 84.
I’ve made a Fourth World youtube Music playlist to commemorate his passing with his own & his proteges’ music (featuring the late Jorge Reyes, Pierre Bastien, Rob Angus, O Yuki Conjugate, Joseph Shabason and many of his works.)
FOURTH WORLD IS
A KIND OF PHILOSOPHICAL GUIDELINE, A CREATIVE POSTURE, DIRECTED TOWARDS THE CONDITIONS CREATED BY THE INTERSECTION OF TECHNOLOGY WITH INDIGINOUS MUSIC AND CULTURE.
THE UNDERLYING GOAL IS TO PROVIDE A KIND OF CREATIVE MIDWIFERY TO THE INEVITABLE MERGING OF CULTURES WHILE PROVIDING AN ANTIDOTE TO A GLOBAL "MONOCULTURE" CREATED BY MEDIA COLONIZATION.
THE UNDERLYING PREMISE IS THAT EACH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' MUSIC AND CULTURE - THE RESULT OF THEIR UNIQUE RESPONSE TO THEIR UNIQUE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT - FUNCTIONS IN THE SAME WAY AS, AS AN "ELEMENT" IN THE PERIODIC TABLE OF CHEMISTRY: AS PURE BUILDING BLOCKS FROM WHICH ALL OTHER "CULTURAL COMPOUNDS" WILL ARISE.
IN OTHER WORDS, THESE CULTURES ARE OUR "VOCABULARY" IN TRYING TO THINK ABOUT WAYS TO RESPOND TO OUR PLACE IN THE NEW GEOGRAPHY CREATED BY OUR MEDIA WORLD, AND MUST BE RESPECTED RELATIVE TO THEIR IMPORTANCE TO OUR SURVIVAL.
For More on Jon Hassell please read:
"In those days, the Cold War days, there was the First World and basically the unspoken Second, which was the Soviet empire," Hassell once explained to an interviewer. "Anything outside of those two was called Third World, and it usually meant less developed countries. And those less developed countries were places where tradition was still alive and spirituality was inherent in their musical output, for lack of a better term. [Fourth World] was like '3 +1.' The idea was the merging of the traditional and spiritual side from the Third World with the First World technology, using the harmonizer and that kind of thing."
Born in Memphis, Jon Hassell studied at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music before decamping to Europe to study under Karlheinz Stockhausen. (Among his classmates were Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay, who later formed Can.) Upon his return to the United States, Hassell would take a fellowship at SUNY Buffalo’s Center for Creative and Performing Arts, where he first met American minimalist composer Terry Riley.
Few people can lay claim to inventing a totally new sonic terrain. Jon Hassell is one of them. Beginning in the 1970s, the composer and musician devised a method of playing the trumpet that expanded its reach. By feeding the trumpet through a harmonizer or other electronic effects, and playing it with a fluid, expressive style schooled via Indian classical music, he made music in a way that was closer to painting.
RIP Jon Hassell.