Hammer - 1978 - Black Sheep

Hammer

1978

Black Sheep

01. Jet Stream

02. Heavy Love

03. Black Sheep

04. Light of Dawn

05. Hey Girl

06. Waiting No More

07. Between the Sheets of Music

08. Manic Depression

09. Silent One

Jan Hammer / keyboards, drums, percussion

Tony Smith / drums, vocals

Fernando Saunders / bass, vocals

Colin Hodgkinson / vocals

Gregg Geya Carter /vocals

Bob Christianson / vocals

'Black Sheep',released in 1978 was the first album by this artist I ever heard and indeed it's very atypical of Jan Hammer.So is 'Hammer' from 1979.Strictly speaking about 'Black Sheep' the album is a wild mixture of musical styles,starting out with the brazen heavy metal of "Jet Stream" while the title song and the pretty "Silent One" are catchy midtempo pop that couldv'e easily come off of the Melodies album."Waiting No More" and "Between The Sheets Of Music" are the most musically interesting as they both showcase an uptempo fusing of blues,funk and fusion set to quirky arrangements.Hammer himself takes on the lead vocals himself on "Hey Girl" which strangly has a certain punk edge (?????)while he takes another hard rock turn on a metallic cover of Jimi Hendrix's"Manic Depression".As for the next album 'Hammer'-a VERY different animal.Where 'Black Sheep' is pure transitional material THIS album,despite being the follow up takes a more drastic turn towards simple three chord rock n' roll,heavily influened by Steve Miller and Paul McCartney.Only the fairly funky "One Day" sounds anything like the old Jan Hammer Group.Tunes like "Goodbye","Vaporize Me",a cover of "Oh Pretty Women" and the Beatle-esqe pop of "Sister Louisianna" owe almost everything to mainstream pop-rock then to anything relating to fusion jazz,except that Hammer's electric guitar-like porto moog subtitutes for the lead guitars.Only the oddball,clished Eurodisco of the Georgio Moroder-ish "Forever Tonight" falls really out of place,sounding strangly like Donna Summer's "Sunset People" of the same vintage.In addition this CD includes a bonus cut,a Jimmy Clif-style reggae version of "Oh Pretty Woman" that's very exciting. Taken together this twofer CD package collects two of Jan Hammer's most unusual and experimental music.Likely to disgust jazz and fusion fans for it's heavy rock n' roll content and not likely to appeal to fans of commercial R&B because of the genre defying material but for someone already exposed to the other music of Jan Hammer (ie his two albums with the Mahavisnu Orchestra circa 1971-72 or his two Jan Hammer Group albums circa 1976-77) these albums will fill some gaps left between 1977's Melodies and his subsequent hard rock with Neal Schone and his latter Miami Vice (1984-89 Television Series) soundtrack work.