Gabriel Mark Hasselbach: Gabriel's Horns

If Gabriel Mark Hasselbach’s music is jazz, then Gabriel’s Horns could sell as a franchise. It is targeted to listeners who play music to brighten their days. Hasselbach achieves this goal beautifully in just over 60 minutes. The sound is slickly dripped with an honesty that makes this music hard to place within jazz, or without it.

Accomplished and relaxing, Gabriel’s Horns has value added in production elements that serve to remove the edge from any given day. “Uber Smooth” uses raindrop keyboard effects reminiscent of the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm,” yet this song contrasts the spatial effect with highly competent horn playing. “Groovalicious Bumpus” shakes you out of sedation in a nine-minute groove that pumps with purposeful attitude. “When You Look for Love” would be smooth jazz radio’s obvious choice. “Soulmates” soothingly explores musical paths that were defined 20 years ago, but it does so well. The back half of the record re-establishes a rejuvenating catharsis of smooth music.

The title track is the best song on this record, a potpourri of winded aural environments with a lovely melody line spaced by layered keyboard textures.

Critics may deem this record to be too slick. If slick is bad, Hasselbach is guilty, but he unabashedly excels in the music’s mainstream.

Gabriel’s Horns is absolutely produced. The mix is clear yet textured, incorporating a world of sounds. The whole record holds 4/4 time, songs are strategically slow-faded, and the last two tracks are vocal reprisals of their former selves. This record is as much created as played.

Gabriel’s Horns packs musical ideas into a density that acknowledges commerce, but Gabriel Mark Hasselbach is easily talented enough to deviate from that norm in the future. If you think real jazz must be hard to grasp, you won’t like this record. Those of us who shun that debate are drawn to this music as a fan is to art.

Visit Gabriel Mark Hasselbach on the Web.