Jan Hammer
Jan Hammer
Jan Hammeris a Czech musician, composer and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s program, Miami Vice. He has continued to work as both a musical performer and producer, expanding to producing film later in his career...
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth17 April 1948
growing-up growing jazz
Growing up, I was very much interested in jazz music.
years wells
I spent well over a year on the road with Sarah Vaughn. That was amazing.
moving fuel way
Emotions are the fuel to really move you along - that's the only way you can create music. If you don't feel any emotions, it's not going to happen.
mother singers today
My mother is a singer, still performs today; she's a jazz singer.
years television film-and-television
I've been doing a lot of music for films and television for quite a few years.
fun play stills
Still for fun, I play the drums, but I don't do much recording with them.
impossible problem reason
The problem that I have is with the music business. For some reason it seems almost impossible to get anything, any music, released which includes improvisation or soloing.
knows
You never know what you find once you really get going.
passion gone spontaneity
The passion and spontaneity in music is all gone.
talking voice america
It was very hard to get any records, so the only source for us to really hear what was happening was listening to the Voice of America. We would be taping all the broadcast and then sharing the tapes and talking about it.
perform quotes
It's not really that I didn't want to perform at all. What I didn't want to do was try to put together a band, rehearse, on my own. You know what I mean?
happened
The band couldn't have happened anywhere else in the world but New York. That was the catalyst.
cds media water
Everything from now on will be done online - physical music media like the CD are dead in the water.