Black Sheep/Hammer

Artist: Hammer
Label: Wounded Bird Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 2

UPC: 664140017320
EAN: 0664140017320
ASIN: B0009E325C

Release Date: 2005-05-31

Related Categories:

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

Jazz Fusion

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Smooth Jazz

| Jazz | Styles | Music

Listmania:

The Great Funky Keyboard Classics-Part Deux

Tracks:

Jetstream
Heavy Love
Black Sheep
Light of Dawn
Hey Girl
Waiting No More
Between the Sheets of Music
Manic Depression
Silent One

Tracks:

Goodbye
I Got You
Oh, Pretty Woman
One Day
Vaporize Me
Nowhere to Go
Forever Tonight
Highway Made of Glass
Rainbow Day
Sister Louisiana
Oh, Pretty Woman [Reggae Version][#][*]

Similar Items:

Melodies
Oh Yeah?
The First Seven Days
Like Children
Timeless

Customer Reviews:

I Will Need Not Wait Anymore!.......2005-06-01

'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' soundtrack work.

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