Creativity Quote by Jan Hammer

New York isn’t name-dropping here; it’s a claim about chemistry. When Jan Hammer says the band “couldn’t have happened anywhere else,” he’s pointing to a city that functions less like a backdrop and more like an instrument you play. The word “catalyst” is telling: a catalyst doesn’t create the ingredients, it accelerates the reaction. Hammer’s intent is to credit a particular kind of pressure cooker - density, ambition, proximity, competition - for turning a handful of talented people into something louder than the sum of its parts.

There’s subtext in the absoluteness, too. “Anywhere else” is a subtle rebuke to the romantic myth that art is purely individual genius. Hammer is arguing for environment as co-author: the late-night sessions, the cross-pollination between scenes, the casual collisions that only happen when everyone is stacked on top of everyone else. New York becomes a machine for forcing encounters - between styles, classes, accents, and egos - until a new sound drops out.

Context matters because Hammer is an immigrant musician who made his name inside a moment when New York’s studios, clubs, and TV/film industries were tightly interlinked. It wasn’t just a city with audiences; it was infrastructure. By calling it “the” catalyst, he’s also hinting at fragility: move the same people to a calmer, cheaper place and you might get competent music, not a band with urgency. New York, in this framing, is the stress test that reveals what’s real.