Jan Hammer: The jazz fusion “hero” who influenced Jeff Beck
The prevailing image of rock and roll guitarists is most often one of arrogance or pretentiousness. In fairness, when figures like Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton spend hours talking about guitar tones and the joys of the B7sus4 chord, it is easy to find yourself rolling your eyes. The reality is, however, that most of rock’s greatest guitarists were fairly humble musicians, constantly looking for ways to develop and build upon their own playing style. One such figure was Surrey’s blues rock hero Jeff Beck.
Rising to prominence during the 1960s as a member of The Yardbirds, Beck wasted no time in establishing himself among the greatest guitarists in Britain at the time. The very fact that Beck was inducted into the group on the recommendation of Jimmy Page should be enough to give you an idea of the extent of Beck’s talents, but with The Yardbirds, he helped to completely redefine perceptions of blues rock.
Although he is perhaps best remembered for the riffs he created with The Yardbirds or his early solo work like ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ or ‘Beck’s Bolero’, some of the guitarist’s most accomplished work came after his 1960s heyday, as he began to embrace jazz. Jazz-rock fusion is a particularly contentious subgenre, managing to upset fans of both jazz and rock, but Beck’s flirts with style were utterly compelling.
Of course, there were a myriad of factors why Beck descended into the world of jazz-rock fusion, but Jan Hammer’s guitar playing during this time was a prevailing influence. The Czech composer had originally found notoriety as a keyboardist with early jazz fusion group the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but it was Hammer’s solo career that really caught the attention of Jeff Beck.
Hammer’s first solo record, 1975’s The First Seven Days, revolutionised the world of American jazz fusion upon release. Expectedly, therefore, it always remained a particular favourite of Jeff Beck. Although Hammer did not play guitar on the album, the unique tones of his keyboard playing inspired a shift in Beck’s style of playing.
“The music on [The First Seven Days] is so graphic,” the guitarist shared to The Express in 2014, explaining, “Jan became my hero when he was in John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was playing bendy notes with a keyboard so it sounded like a guitar and I became obsessed with how he did it”. This endless desire for innovation and education goes some way as to explaining why Jeff Beck is consistently hailed among the greatest rock guitarists of the 20th century.
Luckily for Beck, he did not have to wait too long for Hammer to reveal the secrets of his playing style. In fact, on Beck’s third solo record, Wired, he recruited Hammer to play keyboards on the album. The resulting record is surely among the greatest jazz fusion efforts of that decade, eclipsed only by the collaborative live album which followed 1977’s Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live.
