Jan Hammer Biography 1
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"How does anything translate to music?" retorted Jan Hammer
nearly a dozen years ago when he was asked how a musician might go about
formulating the creation of the world on two sides of a long-playing
album. The occasion was the issue of his second solo album, "The
First Seven Days", a broadly constructed work that would magnify the
thinning line between art and science. Released in 1975, "The First
Seven Days" reflected the first rumblings of the true demise of
so-called "jazz-rock fusion" and hinted at a more expansive
"third-through-fifth stream" sensibility taking hold.
"Assuming that each of these 'days' lasted anywhere from one day to a hundred million years", Hammer's throwaway disclaimer noted, "the scientific and biblical views do meet in certain points. These points were the inspiration for this album, and besides," he added with a touch of arty sarcasm that one should know Jan Hammer to truly appreciate, "they provided me with an excuse to write seven new pieces of music." So more than a decade before New Age Music was even a gleam in the eye, here was one classically bred, jazz-fed, rock-led musician who was prepared for something entirely different on his display monitor. "The First Seven Days" earned a well-deserved four-star review in "down beat" upon its release, just as "Like Children" (the first solo album of one year before) had earned. With only the loosest construct of mythical, magical and astronomical points of departure, Jan Hammer's improvisational bravado had become a focal point, if not 'cause célèbre'. His method of composition, though in its earliest stage of refinement, was effective and startling at once. The sheer physical use of keyboard instruments (synthesizers, piano, digital sequencer, Mellotron) as well as drums (he is second-to-none behind his trap kit) figured into the composing process and therefore the recording process too, as the framework took shape on the eighttrack machine and final mixes were constructed. The scene was Hammer's own Red Gate Studio, located at his secluded farmhouse in upstate New York and site of every one of his recordings since then. The inspiration it has provided for his artistic output over the years is traced in an unbroken line from "The First Seven Days" to last week's episode of "Miami Vice". With its complex, emotionally wrenching scenarios every week, the program quickly transcended its predecessors in the genre. And with Jan Hammer's intuitively balanced musical scores providing an operatic flow of tension and release for nearly every scene - he has been known to deliver as much as 32 minutes of music for one episode - "Miami Vice" continues its unique, lonely vigil in prime time's topten wars. Jan Hammer was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on April 17, 1948. Encouraged by his family - his mother, a well-known Czech singer, and his father, a practicing doctor who worked his way through school playing bass and vibraphone - Jan played piano at age four and began formal music instruction at six. He intended to follow his father into medicine but was convinced by a family friend to pursue his music instead. He formed the Junior Trio in high school with bassist Miroslav Vitous (future founding member of Weather Report) and drummer Alan Vitous, and then with Miroslav he attended the Prague Academy of Muse Ans, devouring classes in harmony, counterpoint, music history, and classical composition. He and Miroslav won scholarships to the Berklee School of Music in Boston, and upon his arrival in the United States in the summer of 1968, on the heels of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, Jan Hammer immediately made up his mind to become a U.S. citizen. While at Berklee he mined the Boston scene for gigs from November '68 (his first paying job for $15.00 aboard a harbor cruise boat) through early 1970. Then without a rehearsal he joined the Sarah Vaughan Trio virtually overnight, staying on for 13 months as keyboardist and conductor while they toured extensively in North America and Japan. During this period he took up residence at the legendary artist lofts at 76 Jefferson Street in lower Manhattan, a scene of "great soul-searching and musical searching", he said later. He played extensively in New York, recorded on albums with Jeremy Steig and Elvin Jones in 1970 and in April, 1971 began to jam with guitarist John McLaughlin and drummer Billy Cobham. The month before, McLaughlin (with Cobham and violinist Jerry Goodman) had recorded the pivotal album "My Goals Beyond"; the month that followed marked the genesis of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra: McLaughlin, Cobham, Goodman, bassist Rick Laird and Jan Hammer on multiple keyboards. The original lineup recorded three albums in the next two years: The "Inner Mounting Flame", "Birds of Fire", and the live set, "Between Nothingness And Eternity", setting every new standard for the popularization of fusion, Their improvisatory excellence was aimed at the young audience (Aerosmith and the Eagles were among the mega-rock bands that opened concerts for Mahavishnu) and succeeded through some 530 shows. On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1973, their farewell concert took place. But Hammer and Goodman had already made plans to record an album together. Sessions took place March - April '74 at the Caribou Ranch in Colorado and Trident Studios in London; and the album known as "Like Children" inaugurated the Nemperor Records label (then distributed by Atlantic Records) in November of that year. From that album, this anthology contains "Night", and "I Remember Me", both performed by Hammer and Goodmam. Also included was this anthology's closing track, entitled "No Fear", a solo performance by Jan Hammer from "Like Children". Exactly one year later marked the release of "The First Seven Days". "For those concerned", noted the LP's other Hammerian disclaimer, "there is no guitar on this album". The artist/composer/producer/engineer carried the show this time, playing all instruments on "Oceans And Continents" (the third day) and "Plants And Trees" (the fourth day), On "The Animals" (the fifth day), Hammer is joined by David Earle Johnson on percussion and young Steve Kindler (who'd taken Goodman's spot in the Mahavishnu lineup) on violin. On the album's appropriately titled epic conclusion "The Seventh Day", which opens this anthology, Hammer is once again joined by Kindler. The three summer months of 1975 that were spent executing "The First Seven Days" had already receded into autumn as the Jan Hammer Group was assembled: Hammer and Kindler were joined by bassist Fernando Saunders and West Coast drummer Tony Smith. The group's national tour was received with overwhelmingly positive reviews by jazz and rock critics alike. Having fused into a tightly knit unit, they headed to Red Gate and recorded their first album together, "Oh, Yeah?". Here were eight distinct tunes, a departure from the conceptual framework of "The First Seven Days", with touches of rock, R&B, progressive disco-jazz, and Hammer's peculiar 'country & eastern' approach. On most of the tracks for "Oh, Yeah?", including "Bambu Forest", Johnson was added on congas and percussion. The title tune, "Oh, Yeah?" was even issued as a single that September, 1976. The lineup of Hammer, Kindler, Saunders, and Smith surprised everyone when they became guitarist Jeff Beck's collaborators that year. "Wired", Beck's LP featuring the classic "Blue Wind" (written by Hammer) was recorded at Red Gate and signaled the opening of a 12-month association together, More than one hundred performances during their worldwide tour were chronicled on the next album, "Jeff Beck With The Jan Hammer Group Live", with four out of its seven tracks written by Hammer. Both these albums, it is noted, have sold in excess of two million copies in the United States alone, and remain CBS catalog bestsellers; and "Wired" was one of the label's first compact disc releases. The final album by the Jan Hammer Group was issued October, 1977. "Melodies" was basically a vocal album except for two instrumental tracks. "Your Love", the LP's closing number, is a fitting inclusion on this anthology. The winter tour that followed the album's release was the last by the Jan Hammer Group as it was known then. For Jan Hammer, the ensuing years 1978 through 1984 (when he began working on "Miami Vice") presented a multitude of challenges. There was another solo album, his first in some years, entitled "Black Sheep" (introducing his then one-of-a-kind portable keyboard instrument, the Probe), followed by the "pure rock 'n' roll" breakthrough of a new four-piece band called Hammer, featuring bassist and co-writer Colin Hodgkinson. Into the '80s, there were overlapping projects with two very different guitarists, yielding very different results: with Journey's Neal Schon, "Untold Passion" (1981) and "Here To Stay" (1983) hinted at a furious new rock: and a promo video of "No More Lies" even became an MTV staple in its maiden year. With Al DiMeola, on the other hand, "Electric Rendezvous" and "Tour de Force Live" (at the beginning and end of 1982, respectively) captured, in Hammer's own words, "the last hurrah for fusion"; while DiMeola's "Scenario" (1983), in which Hammer contributed more than half the LP's songs, made extensive use of his Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer experience. In the year that preceded "Miami Vice", Jan Hammer was involved in recordings with artists as diverse as James Young of Styx, guitarist John Abercrombie, and Mick Jagger's solo album, "She's The Boss". He also wrote and performed on Jeff Beck's latest album, "Flash", for which Hammer's composition "Escape" won a 1985 Grammy award for "Best Rock Instrumental Performance". There were scoring assignments for the films "A Night In Heaven", "Secret Admirer", and documentaries on British and Canadian television. But nowhere was his musical paintbrush put to a greater test than on the weekly schedule of "Miami Vice", which rightfully earned Jan Hammer a No.1 single and Grammy awards in 1985 for "Best Instrumental Composition" and "Best Pop Instrumental Performance". "Music", he said, "can bring about the total expression of an emotion, mood, or feeling that can sometimes only be implied by the actor, director, or cinematographer working 'without' music. When images, story, and music are perrectly in tune, a film becomes the highest form of magic." The magic that is heard on "The Early Years" provides a crucial building block in the evolution of one of America's most prolific musical visionaries.
From the sleeve of "The early years" (1986),
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The Original Jan Hammer Homepage 2001