Night

Jerry Goodman (acoustic violin, electric violin, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, acoustic mandolin, electric mandolin, viola, vocals) and Jan Hammer (piano, electric piano, synthesizer, Moog synthesizer, electric bass, drums). From the album Like Children (1974).

In 1977 Hammer began a long collaboration with American guitarist Al di Meola from the famous jazz fusion group Return to Forever. His first album with him was Elegant Gypsy (1977), which contains jazz fusion with fast guitar riffs alternating with lyrical passages. The themes also include forays into Latin jazz and flamenco, with the participation of the Spanish virtuoso guitarist Paco de Lucía. In addition, it won the Guitar Player Magazine award for Best Guitar Album of that year. A riff is a short phrase that is repeated over different melodies and can serve as a chorus interpreted by the instruments that are part of the backing of a piece of music. Although it’s more common in jazz, rock and funk, it can also be found in classical music, and can be as simple as a catchy rhythmic figure or as complicated as the head arrangements of Count Basie’s jazz orchestra.

In the second album, Splendid Hotel (1980), Hammer makes a solo with the Moog synthesizer in “Al Di’s Dream Theme”. In 1981 Al di Meola recorded Electric Rendezvous in a similar style than Elegant Gypsy, including the presence of Paco de Lucía, and in 1982 Tour de Force - Live appeared containing a performance of the same year at the Philadelphia’s Tower Theater with four of the six tunes recorded previously. Finally, in Scenario (1983) Hammer used a Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer and Al di Meola a Roland synthesized guitar. In 1979 Hammer wrote and recorded three tracks for Jeff Beck’s There and Back, in which Beck puts more emphasis on rock than jazz and ranked tenth on Billboard‘s list of jazz albums.

Hammer’s “Star Cycle” became the song for the television music program The Tube broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1982 to 1987. Also in 1979 he published Black Sheep playing all the instruments himself and in 1980 Hammer with a band that he founded with the same name, interpreting in both albums crossover jazz, a kind of jazz fusion combined with other musical genres to make it more accessible to the overall listener. In addition, he participated in Hip Address (1980) by percussionist, composer and record producer David Earle Johnson, also playing crossover jazz.