Jan Hammer

[memyselfandus]

Any Jan Hammer fans? Couple interviews talking about his favorite software

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep04/a ... hammer.htm

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/tag/j ... er/page/2/

[Gonga]

Jan is easily one of the best synth players ever - the best imo. I've been following him closely since seeing him play with the Mahavishnu Orchestra on "In Concert" around 1973. Pretty much everything I ever needed to know about playing I learned from reading interviews with him, including lots of great technique tips, analog programming, effects, etc. He elevated the instrument to the level of traditional instruments. Unfortunately, the synthesizer as an instrument still has a bad rep among many people, including much of the general public (it's not a "real instrument"). This problem isn't helped by keyboardists who play the synth as just another keyboard and "sound generator," or who see it's potential merely in terms of its programming. But if more could hear Jan's playing on such gems as the recently released "Live in Dallas," that view of the instrument would fall away. It's a funky recording, including out-of-tune violin, but it contains some of the best synth playing ever recorded. Jan absolutely cooks on that monophonic Minimoog custom controller rig - his first custom synth controller - and the inspiration for the one I built around 1980 (see my avatar). Perhaps his most important "patch" was the sync sweep with foot pedal ("guitar" on Miami Vice Theme), which he played for thousands and thousands of hours - enough to master it the way a guitarist masters a Strat. When he moved to the Powel Probe, that had, among other controls, a little spring-loaded lever for the fingers below his pitch-bending thumb - in effect a "whammy bar." Jan found a few sounds that he practiced all the time, and which became his "signature sounds." The synth has more potential "signature sounds" waiting for instrumentalists to find them and find their musical voice.

It is my hope that young musicians will one day aspire to master control of the instrument, the way Jan did, and to better realize the almost unlimited potential it has as a personal musical instrument (still largely unrealized). When the day comes that players will be able to walk into a music shop in any major city and order a custom controller with custom left-hand controls, the way guitarists have for decades, that will be the day that the synth will have fully arrived as a true instrument. With an instrument like that, and thousands of hours of practice, anything is possible.

[memyselfandus]

Jan is easily one of the best synth players ever - the best imo. I've been following him closely since seeing him play with the Mahavishnu Orchestra on "In Concert" around 1973. Pretty much everything I ever needed to know about playing I learned from reading interviews with him, including lots of great technique tips, analog programming, effects, etc. He elevated the instrument to the level of traditional instruments. Unfortunately, the synthesizer as an instrument still has a bad rep among many people, including much of the general public (it's not a "real instrument"). This problem isn't helped by keyboardists who play the synth as just another keyboard and "sound generator," or who see it's potential merely in terms of its programming. But if more could hear Jan's playing on such gems as the recently released "Live in Dallas," that view of the instrument would fall away. It's a funky recording, including out-of-tune violin, but it contains some of the best synth playing ever recorded. Jan absolutely cooks on that monophonic Minimoog custom controller rig - his first custom synth controller - and the inspiration for the one I built around 1980 (see my avatar). Perhaps his most important "patch" was the sync sweep with foot pedal ("guitar" on Miami Vice Theme), which he played for thousands and thousands of hours - enough to master it the way a guitarist masters a Strat. When he moved to the Powel Probe, that had, among other controls, a little spring-loaded lever for the fingers below his pitch-bending thumb - in effect a "whammy bar." Jan found a few sounds that he practiced all the time, and which became his "signature sounds." The synth has more potential "signature sounds" waiting for instrumentalists to find them and find their musical voice.

It is my hope that young musicians will one day aspire to master control of the instrument, the way Jan did, and to better realize the almost unlimited potential it has as a personal musical instrument (still largely unrealized). When the day comes that players will be able to walk into a music shop in any major city and order a custom controller with custom left-hand controls, the way guitarists have for decades, that will be the day that the synth will have fully arrived as a true instrument. With an instrument like that, and thousands of hours of practice, anything is possible.

wow! very cool stuff

[annode]

Kinda thinking Gonga is really a frustrated closet guitarist.
Back to Hammer...I agree. He really was the first to bring the Moog up to the level of McLaughlin`s guitar virtuoso. I found the same true, although somewhat different, in Hammer`s approach to the Rhodes and ring modulator.

I`ve seen Hammer live more times then I can recall, solo and as an accompaniment. His Hendrix covers with his controller were amazing.(Manic Depression)
I think it was 1973 at the Academy of Music (Philadelphia) I slipped into Jan`s dressing room to speak with him. He was warming up his fingers and rhythm by playing a conga drum. I don`t remember what we talked about sadly, I was kinda stoned. Soon McLaughlin walked in and warned me of the bad effects of cigarette smoking. ( I can't believe I was smoking in that small room! Shame on me. I was like 17)
I melted in shame and slipped out the door. At another Mahavisnu concert I tried to hitch a ride with them after the show. Hahaha

What am I doing in this thread again? ... Oh yeah, have to watch those interviews. Thanks!
EDIT - While reading the SOS interview now I had to come back and brag how I saw Hammer perform the LP 'The First Seven Days' at a small cafe.(Bijou Cafe-Phila) Knew shit about synths in those days, but I do remember his customized Furman string synth and how the audience went bonkers for the opening synth pitch drop from track #1 of The First Seven Days .It shook the room!

[goldenanalog]

A couple of funfacts (which you may already know):

He has always seemed to have had (or access to) great gear - especially true when working on Miami Vice -

The book preview (2nd url) doesn't mention the actual model, but his MV work centered around a Fairlight Series 3 (about $40,000 base price back then), in conjunction with a Kawai K5m module - iirc - mt recording duties were handled by his personal (Tascam?) 24-track.

Michael Mann, who produced Miami Vice, originally wanted Tangerine Dream to score the show - TD turned him down, allowing Jan to step in.

http://miamivice.wikia.com/wiki/Tangerine_Dream

https://books.google.com/books?id=48uav ... er&f=false

Edit: The above book preview also mentions a memorymoog and DX-7 - I don't remember these specifically being used for staple sounds in his MV work, but I do remember that after the purchase of his Fairlight, he had said that he had a large number of keyboards, and that he wanted to downsize his inventory (at that time).

To say that Jan is a genius, and has had an illustrious career borders on understatement:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep04/a ... hammer.htm

'Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Jan Hammer began playing piano at age four and by the age of 14 was performing and recording throughout Eastern Europe with his own jazz trio. A scholarship at the Berklee School of Music in Boston prompted his move to the US where he became a citizen, but today Jan's name is far more closely associated with the synthesizer than with the piano. Indeed, it could be argued that Jan was almost single-handedly responsible for establishing the electronic synthesizer as a virtuoso performance instrument in its own right rather than as a substitute for traditional instrument sounds. Since 'going electric' Jan has played with a huge number of influential bands and musicians and has evolved a distinctive and instantly recognisable synthesizer style. Who can forget those wailing synth lines in Miami Vice or the seminal albums recorded with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and British guitar legend Jeff Beck?'

[Gonga]

Kinda thinking Gonga is really a frustrated closet guitarist.
Back to Hammer...I agree. He really was the first to bring the Moog up to the level of McLaughlin`s guitar virtuoso. I found the same true, although somewhat different, in Hammer`s approach to the Rhodes and ring modulator.

I`ve seen Hammer live more times then I can recall, solo and as an accompaniment. His Hendrix covers with his controller were amazing.(Manic Depression)
I think it was 1973 at the Academy of Music (Philadelphia) I slipped into Jan`s dressing room to speak with him. He was warming up his fingers and rhythm by playing a conga drum. I don`t remember what we talked about sadly, I was kinda stoned. Soon McLaughlin walked in and warned me of the bad effects of cigarette smoking. ( I can't believe I was smoking in that small room! Shame on me. I was like 17)
I melted in shame and slipped out the door. At another Mahavisnu concert I tried to hitch a ride with them after the show. Hahaha

What am I doing in this thread again? ... Oh yeah, have to watch those interviews. Thanks!
EDIT - While reading the SOS interview now I had to come back and brag how I saw Hammer perform the LP 'The First Seven Days' at a small cafe.(Bijou Cafe-Phila) Knew shit about synths in those days, but I do remember his customized Furman string synth and how the audience went bonkers for the opening synth pitch drop from track #1 of The First Seven Days .It shook the room!

I've played guitar for 40 years, but my synth does a lot of stuff a guitar can't, and I am primarily a synth player. Of course, all serious synth PLAYERS are closet guitar-hero wannabees, right? If people espouse that crap, the synth as an instrument will continue to suffer from our own bias. It will take PLAYERS to elevate the instrument to the place it deserves. No offense taken tho

Yeah, the best concert I ever attended was the Jan Hammer group at Scott's in Albany. I sat at Jan's pedal foot while he played his 6-voice custom Oberheim via his Powel Probe. It was 2 hours of musical bliss that will remain forever etched in my mind and soul.

I can't tell you how nice it is run into a couple Hammer freaks. Imo, Jan never got the notoriety he deserves - for what he did for synthesis. It just is not recognized. He's remembered for MV and for "sounding like a guitar." What a load of shit. The first great synth PLAYER, and still the best. Period.

[aMUSEd]

Any Jan Hammer fans? Couple interviews talking about his favorite software

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep04/a ... hammer.htm

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/tag/j ... er/page/2/

Yes and no, I love his early stuff with the Mahavishnu's and Jerry Goodman, 'Like Children' in particular uses the synth musically in ways even TD were just beginning to do. But the later Miami Vice etc stuff not so much.

[Frantz]

U Can't Touch Hammer