Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great synth prog from former Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist, June 16, 2006
As a huge Mahavishnu Orchestra fan, I was pretty excited when I stumbled across this 1975 album, which has been nicely remastered by Columbia. This album features Jan playing all of the instruments including acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, moog synthesizer, Oberheim synthesizer and digital sequencer, Freeman string synthesizer, and mellotron along with a full drum kit. As it turns out, he is a pretty good drummer. Steve Kindler provides some violin work here and there, while David Earle Johnson provides percussion on The Animals and Sixth Day People.
The music on The First Seven Days is a far cry from the full-out rave ups on Mahavishnu albums like Inner Mounting Flame (1971) and Birds of Fire (1973). Rather, this is a very prog rock sounding album, with loads of synthesizers, European classical influences, rock influences, and with very little in the way of jazz. In general, the pieces range from quiet piano interludes to heavier tracks that feature the drums (the title track for example). In general though, all of the tracks are very atmospheric and synth-heavy.
For those of you that are curious, this album is not an exercise in mere "blowing". Although Jan does flex some Mahavishnu-like muscle from time to time, the pieces are generally carefully composed and arranged, and exhibit a great deal of restraint for somebody with such tremendous "chops".
All in all this album is very highly recommended to prog fans, exploratory Mahavishnu Orchestra fans, and possibly even electronica fans.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Masters's Original Masterpiece, July 27, 2003
Jan Hammer's The First Seven Days is a fascinating excursion into the richly hued world of multi-track keyboarding. With the exception of a violinist and a percussionist on the last 3 tracks, all the music is performed by Mr. Hammer on acoustic and electric pianos, synthesizers, and Mellotron, with the aid of a digital sequencer. The album is close to the work of guitarist John McLaughlin in its use of bitonal riffs and in the construction of the tunes, which tend each to consist of two or three distinct alternating sections; but for the most part Mr. Hammer prefers creating broad sweeps of sound and slow melodies on the keyboard to the sizzling lead work he turned out with McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. The melodies are often in unisons at a two- or three-octave range, accompanied simultaneously by a riff and by a synthesized string texture. The Biblical story of the Creation is an ambitious subject for an album - perhaps a little too ambitious. It is to Mr. Hammer's credit that he has preferred evocative rather than imitative music and the material of each movement does indeed evoke the appropriate images, sometimes with startling felicity (cf. the funky percussion during "The Animals," and the shimmering tone colors of "Light"). But as Mr. Hammer himself notes, the story of the Creation provided him with "an excuse to write seven new pieces of music," and the titanic impetus of the Biblical story is simply absent from the result. The only points of high drama occur at the outset and at the conclusion of the album: What is in between is beautiful music without any of the urgency that one would associate with such momentous events. Considered apart from its ostensible inspiration, however, the album is a gem. The cycling of the riffs creates a peaceful aura which the angular tonalities keep from cloying, and there are enough surprises both in the textures and in the junctures between sections to satisfy the most particular listener. -
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the wait for CD, September 16, 2003
I wore out my vinyl copy, and was not disappointed to hear it again after many years. This suite of programmatic tone poems is every bit as good as I remember. Among a group of sometimes brilliant (e.g., his work with Mahavishnu Orchestra), sometimes cheesy (e.g., some of the JH Group and soundtrack stuff) works, this is one of which Hammer can forever be very, very, proud.
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by Jan Hammer 
