Jack Hassall
Jack Hassall is the craftsman of eclectic persona strumming down the cosmic road of digital reverberation and subtle ambiance. His shimmering cascades of audio light reflect a pastel of rainbows. The sonic beauty and creative gleam of a master craftsman of music, mood and nuance.
Jack Hassall's work reflects a multitude of influences that are fused into something that careens under the surface of an enormous deep dark green-blue ocean whilst gazing simultaneously at the pale blue lilac sky. Tunes like 'Fanfare' pulsate electronic groove with horn accents; 'E-thang' segues into counterpoint bass and clavinet with a sheen of ambiance strings and three chord progression hook. In 'Boogie Song' the genre flips to retro dance blues. Jack Hassall's blues roots are showcased in 'Au Revoir' and his acoustic guitar balladry coupled with female soul vox melodies minus lyrics. The harmonica singed FX laden track 'Blue Suede Shoes' is a dreamscape heavy dance beat of delays; The slide guitar majesty of 'Stella Blues' shines with reverberated expression.
Jack Hassall is equally enthralling in a smooth jazz fusion mode via songs such as 'Taxi Dance Revisited' and 'Hyanis Rain' with its open air feel; As are cuts like 'Train To Nowhere' with its subtle nuance and the airy breeze of 'Mood Swing'. The scenic and classic effect of the electric guitar driven 'Findaway' compliment cuts like 'Day Trip' and its melancholy pop-rock pocket sublime. The distant vista of tunes like 'Steady Eddie' contrast songs such as 'Higher Baby' and its merging of R&B energy-urgency.
To come full swing in this carousel of musical colors and capacities we come upon brilliant cuts like 'Why Can't You' ; It's magnificent shimmering hook laden with cascades of ambiance and synthesizer background awash in sly production and mix down digital delay/reverb as to be surmised as a pop/rock gem of inflection reflected aura-sonic. Again witnessed in 'Sweet Sweet Love' we find a moody string with atmospheric effulgence, radiating outwards from the listeners senses to the innermost area of emotion and feeling. This conveys the mastery and unique talent of an artistic British enigma from Manchester; A stones throw away from Liverpool and with all the muse and scenery characteristic of the great artistic output and brilliance of resident Jack Hassall.
Don't be fooled by mere words of praise. Realize and experience Jack Hassall at the beginning of his invention, penetration and insight not only into the fans and listeners hearts; But also to the rise of a songsmith in all of his original ground breaking art to and for people who love true inspiration.
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
Well ... it's a longish story ... I played the cello and recorder (shriek!!) as a small boy in high school.
I discovered the electric guitar through my somewhat older nephew, who had moved to Manchester from the USA, and brought a '67 Fender Telecaster with him. Through him, I became exposed to artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson, John Hammond, John Mayall, BB King, Fleetwood Mac (the original one!)and so on. Oh, and Jimi Hendrix too (whoops!). That would have been around 1970.
Some years later, I was out playing in clubs (as "the guitar player" in the band) every night. I did this for years and gained a lot of experience from the smallest pubs/clubs to huge concert venues such as the Manchester Apollo and the Hammersmith Odeon, as "the guitar player" - in other words, a sideman. Anyway (ask anybody who's been in "showbiz") ... times changed and I got the blues.
I'd always been interested in things "progressive" - i.e. anything that was "new". I was particularly interested in synthesisers in the days when they could only play one note at a time (monophonic!).
So naturally there was an inherrent couriosity there when a friend showed me a computer (TRS 80!) but I really wasn't convinced. Some time later, I ended up teaching myself 8088 assembler programing (boy, that was wild!) and wrote a sampler program which let you watch the incoming bitstream, capture it and manipulate it (and save it to disk!).
So a lifetime later, here I am on the Internet. It's really changed things and I would say has in fact "democratised" the creation and distribution of music. Without this medium, it's certain that you would never hear any of these tracks, and believe me, there's nothing worse than having music that nobody gets to hear. So your attention is hugely appreciated - thank you very much.
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
Not anymore unless invited to sit in on something very cool. I have played live hundreds and hundreds of times, from the smallest pub, to the largest concert venues such as the Hammersmith Odeon in London.
Your musical influences
... from BB King to Badly Drawn Boy and beyond! ... 20hz-20khz - recent influences Roy Patterson (Guitar, Canada), Ulf Wakenius (Guitar, Sweden), Pat Curly (Piano, USA).
My roots are in blues and rock: BB King, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Johnny Winter, Sonny Boy Wiliamson, Albert King, Freddie King, Howling Wolf, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Free, Yes, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, George Benson, Thomas Dolby, The Eurythmics, Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Ry Cooder, Keith Richards, Chuck Berry, The Eagles, Steely Dan, Jacques Loussier (switched on Bach), King Crimson, Dave Grusin, Tal Farlow, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, Bill Evans, Weather Report, Simply Red (I nearly got the guitar chair, but that's another story!), Badly Drawn Boy, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Vaughn Williams, Frank Zappa, Louis Stewart, Peter Almquvist, Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds, Joy Division/New Order, M-People, Martin Hannett, Trevor Horn/Malcom Maclaren (Buffalo Gals), Mozart, Bach, Benoit Mandlebrot and lots of great people I've met on the Internet in the hip-hop/electronica pycho-accoustic scene.
What equipment do you use?
... electric/accoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, harmonica and I'll attempt to incorporate almost anything I can get my hands on into the music if it's appropriate ...
Anything else?
... highlights from GodsOfMusic.com review of Stella Blues and Taxi Dance Revisited.
... I rarely write about music I am wholly unfamiliar with. This is one of those few occasions. The only reason that I picked this artist to begin with was because of the way in which he placed his "signature" in the categories normally used to place the song title and genre in our review request fields. He only placed a sort of smile.
I guess I took it for a smirk actually, perhaps his was saying "hey, whatever you want to pick and think is fine by me." I am glad I took his challenge. There is some really nice stuff on this guy's page.
Stella Blues in particular was one I found very pleasing. Jack Hassall has some really nice chops. Playing for over thirty years will do that for a guy, I suppose. In this case, Jack draws heavily from the rock and blues roots he was into during the very late 60-70s. That he is from England tends to show in his nods to the Thin Lizzy type of guitar riffs, while a touch of Electric Light Orchestra just graces the idea behind the arrangement and slide guitar work.
Add in a tad of the kind of production you might hear from Lindsay Buckingham and you've got a pleasant little piece of music. No vocals on this one, Jack is strictly an instrumentalist it seems.
A departure from the rock side of Jack, is the cool breeze jazz of Taxi Dance Revisited. With its George Benson / Larry Carlton influences shining through loud, proud and strong, Jack shows us that he really has sat and learned how to play his music, with articulation and skill.
Gotta tell y'all, I really like some of this guy's ideas. There is a lot on Jack's page to admire. Chris K. Pro Critic Radio
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Interview with Jack Hassall (January 21, 2002)
Okay, let's plunge into it then.
Inspiration is a word commonly used in your biz. What's yours?
What artist or music do I find inspiring today, or what or who was it in the beginning that inspired me or how do I "get" inspiration to create music? That's obviously an easy question with a somewhat less easy answer!
The first musical artist that inspired me was BB King, the famous blues artist, and even though I'm not black, American and can't sing to save my life, for some reason this didn't seem to matter. I just wanted to play blues guitar in a band. At the same time, guitar players like Peter Green, Johny Winter, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and numerous others were also a huge inspiration for me. Funny enough though, as far as today goes, I would say Badly Drawn Boy is an artist who inspires me because he's done really well, is a nice guy and he lives round the corner from me and he thinks I'm cool! That's inspiring as well, because it's just real. I don't have a problem with being inspired by someone from my own neighborhood!
I'd never heard of him, but as I was once again trying to drag myself out of the musical gutter, I ended up doing a remix of one of his songs which I like. That was completely inspiring for a number of reasons, not least the fact that it made me feel a little better about myself! I'd really like to do some other things in the future, however, I'm just an underground puke and he's a famous pop star, but none the less, the experience - and dare I say "peer review" - was very inspiring and encouraged me enormously, even though what he does and what I do are as different as chalk and cheese.
As for what inspires and motivates me in the creation of my music, it isn't the money, fame or adulation - I certainly have none of that! I guess mechanically, for any given song, inspiration could come from just strumming an acoustic guitar or messing around on a keyboard. When I was in "real" bands with other musicians, inspiration could come by jamming. However, I really think that sometimes I do make life really hard for myself because I'm something of a musical "purist" as well being a perfectionist. I never consciously plagiarize other artists' work by saying "Oh, I'll just do something like that." That would be a quite easy for me to do, but it certainly wouldn't be genuine. Even if you're crazy enough to take this approach, people will always say it sounds like this or it reminds me of that. That's fair enough. It's just a human thing, but only I know if I deliberately did that kind of thing, but to me, it defeats the purpose of developing your own musical individuality. In fact, one of the reasons that Badly thought what I'd done on the remix was cool was that I did it blind by deliberately ignoring his original rendition which I'd only heard once. So just about anything can give me inspiration and I guess that's probably the same for just about anybody involved in creative endeavors of any kind.
Who's your favorite Beatle? (Yoko does count)
I would have to say John Lennon if forced into a corner. Like many of us baby-boomers, I grew up listening to the B
