JAN HAMMER — The First Seven Days (review)

JAN HAMMER — The First Seven Days album cover Album · 1975 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
M.Neumann
Here's one of those rare albums that not only sounds just as good as it did in 1975, but has actually improved with age. The first solo project by the keyboard ace of the original MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA was (by the standards of its time) only a modest instrumental concept album when first released, which might be one reason why it plays so well over 30 years later.

Maybe there were just too many keyboard virtuosos strutting their stuff in the mid 1970s, and a relatively undemonstrative artist like Hammer was simply lost behind the glare of all those sequined capes. And maybe a little time and distance were needed to best appreciate the seamless blend here of so many different influences: prog rock, jazz-rock fusion, world music, middle-European folk songs (Hammer was a native Czech), the Western classical-orchestral tradition, and of course all the emerging trends of late 20th century electronica.

Or maybe, in retrospect, it's simply the glorious sound of all those vintage analog keyboards. The sonorous mini-moog and mellotron intro to "Darkness/Earth in Search of a Sun" has to be one of the more dramatic album openers in modern jazz-rock, and when the sequencers rev into action and the drums (played by Hammer himself) kick in, it's hard not to experience a twin shiver of nostalgia and exhilaration.

The album is loosely drawn around the biblical myth of Genesis, with each of the seven tracks representing another day of creation. But don't worry, there's no religious agenda behind it: Hammer admits in his liner notes he was only looking for an excuse to record an LP's worth of music, and besides (he adds), each metaphorical day might have actually lasted several million years. After all, wasn't the sun itself supposedly made on the third day?

The music itself might be said to be its own eloquent act of creation, helping to jump-start an incredibly prolific career of solo projects and collaborations. The man has an impressive résumé to be sure, but at the top of the list his debut effort still stands apart as something truly special.
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