Truth about ‘Last Night The Moon Came Dropping It’s Clothes Down the Street’ by Jon Hassel

Jazz has always been a unknown medium for me as a genre. The organized chaos as I have nick named the genre to has never had much appeal to me. So when taking on the album ‘Last Night The Moon Came Dropping It’s Clothes Down the Street’ by musician Jon Hassel I choose to go simply on instinct. Hassel’s new album is not the Jazz you imagine, it has a mellow depth to it, from start with ‘Aurora’ it has a mystique. The blowing trumpet reveals nothing but mysterious thoughts that some how leads out to an organized chaos in some way.

The following ‘Time and Place’ and ‘Abu Gil’ is against my principles but completely fantastic. It’s not until ‘Last Night The Moon Came’ that I realize how influential this kind of music has always been to me. The sore, calm and beautiful song reminds me of a mixture between Thomas Newman’s fantastic ‘Ghosts’ from ‘Road To Perdition’ and Miles Davis ‘Little Church’. It’s a fantastic mix in the true sense that it’s jazz that I am listening to and the personal relations to this calm and beautiful composition may be the edge of the album.
‘Courtrais’ follow the same example but also lifts in the mystique into the music that makes inspiration flow. The sense of a dark and lonely street in a big city at nighttime is the first that comes to mind and the instrumental touches of belonging strikes perfectly well all the way through the end part of the album. The end part is on the other hand a little bit more of that jazz I never tend to fully understand.

The sweet, somewhat misery ending with ‘Light on Water’ for fills the album that overall is more than a pleasant monday afternoon listening. It has a sense of depth, mystique that brings out creativity and inspiration out from the everyday. It’s a pinch of brilliance involved in this mellow, beautiful album of Jazz, that I don’t fully understand came to me a pleasant surprise.

Elliot Smith, A Musical Mastermind, Driven by the Depts of Life

On March 23, 1998 Elliott Smith walks up on the stage of the Kodak Theatre to perform his song ‘Miss Misery’ from the film ‘Good Will Hunting’. 5 years 7 months later, the musician is found dead in Los Angeles, CA. The rumors claim that Smith had stabbed himself numerous times in his chest. The music, Smith left behind him reflects the tragic death in many ways. We don’t know much about Smith and his deeper thought, the only proof of his emotional journey through life is what we hear from his music, that lives on with us to today.

Elliott Smith was born in Nebraska and later moved to Duncanville, near Dallas in Texas where he was partly raised. After moving to Portland, Oregon, Smith wrote his first songs at the age of 14. He became a member of the band Heatmiser and debuted in 1993 with an EP called ‘Dead Air’. One year later a terrific solo career took it’s start as Smith released his first full length album, ‘Roman Candle’. It was not until 1997, at his third album release with ‘Either/Or’ that Smith reached the main room of the musical independent industry.
Smith’s dark, emotional music had great influences from as well as Nick Drake, as his lifetime idols ‘The Beatles’. What he came to discover was and give his fans was a deep view, that reflects around life and the larger meanings of it. Picked up by Gus Van Sant in 1997 for the movie production of ‘Good Will Hunting’, Smith’s ‘Miss Misery’ was nominated for best original song at the 1998’s Academy Award.

As far as we know, Smith was suffering from a serious depression, which reflected through his music. And after have releasing ‘XO’ in 1998 and one of the heavier, more emotional albums Figure 8’, Smith started working on what came to be his lifetime project called ‘From a Basement on a Hill’.
Elliott Smith never got see his finished project due to a suspected suicide in Los Angeles on October 21, 2003. The murder/suicide is still to this day unsolved and the investigation is yet until this day open. What we know of Smith is not much, a shy person with deep thought of life has left behind us more than we know. Many like to think that Smith’s music reflects his emotions, he is therefore one of the first and most original true talents in the em/folk/alternative genres that has received that huge of success. The music of Smith is phenomenal, the beauty, sentimental depth is something we find in many musicians today. The truth of emotional music with the basic simple tools of acoustic strings and a piano is the truest we will get inside the musical genius of Elliot Smith.

Songs We Recall from The Art Motion

As argued in ‘Music Of Cinematic Force...’ posted on February 16th I argued who I thought would win. As one week has passed I am of curiosity looking over what the music forums and main sites such as billboard.com are writing about. As a week has passed I am curious myself what the best ‘Original Song Winners’ are. If you’d list them, I’d maybe agree with billboard.com but since I hate listing commercially, from fairly commercial movies winning at the Oscars I prefer to look beyond and somewhat name, not list somewhat the 12-16 best songs in movies because many of these songs has an effect on the movie, it transforms the movies.

Just imagine what ‘Wayne’s World’ would be without ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen or a missing ‘Raindrops Keep Falling...’ in ‘Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid’. The power of the song has created memorable moments in these films and If I from a movie/music lovers perspective go back into what songs has captured and transformed my mind, created these moments of honesty and memory of what the film meant to me.

Clips from Magnolia and Almost Famous.

(It’s Not Going To Stop til’ You) Wise Up by Aimee Mann in Magnolia, ‘Suck’ by Nine Inch Nails in ‘Se7en’. ‘Al Otro Lado Del Rio’ by Jorge Drexler for a ‘Motorcycle Diares’ and Elliot Smith’s ‘Miss Missery’ in the fantastic ‘Good Will Hunting. Glen Hansard’s ‘Falling Slowly’ made ‘Once’ and Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ is a definition of ‘8 Mile’. A fantastic piece from a fantastic soundtrack is ‘Just Like Honey’ by Jesus & Mary Chain in Sofia Coppola’s success ‘Lost In Translation’ and what would the appearence of a stunningly beutiful Natalie Portman had been without The Shins ‘New Slang’ in ‘Garden State’.

Clips from 'Once' and 'As it is in Heaven'.

‘The End’ by The Doors in ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Where’s My Mind’ by the Pixies in ‘Fight Club’ are essentials to the films greatness. Bob Dylan’s originally written ‘Thing’s Have Changed’ for ‘Wonder Boys’ is just worth the Oscar and Eddie Vedder’s fantastic ‘Setting Forth’ in ‘Into The Wild’ and ‘Man Of The Hour’ in ‘Big Fish’ are magnificent. Then again people not familiar with a small language called Swedish, may tend to have never heard one of the most fantastic songs of 2005’s ‘Foreign Film Nominations’, at the Oscars. It's Helen Sjoholm and Stefan Nilsson’s ‘Gabriellas Sang’ in the movie ‘As It is In Heaven’. We close this without forgetting about one of the most explsive scenes from a motion picture, the choring of Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer' by Stillwater in Almost Famous is unforgetable.

All clips come from YouTube.com; following clips comes from 'Magnolia', New Line and Magnolia Projects (1999)'Almost Famous', Columbia Tristar and Dreamworks (2000),'Once' Samson and Buena Vista (2006), 'As It Is In Heaven' Sonet Film (2004)