The Panamanian-born drummer is still considered the non-plus-ultra when it comes to fusion drumming – no one else combines rock aggressiveness with the complexity of jazz in such a coherent and breathtaking way. Billy Cobham drove pioneering works by Miles Davis (“Live-Evil”) and the Mahavishnu Orchestra (“The Inner Mounting Flame”, “Birds Of Fire”), which he co-founded, forward before he took off on his solo career on Atlantic in 1973. With “Spectrum”, he immediately succeeded in creating a classic that has lost none of its class to this day, recorded in just three days in a quartet with keyboardist Jan Hammer, guitarist Tommy Bolin and bassist Lee Sklar, who is still in great demand today. The track “Stratus” also survived as a sample in the Massive Attack hit “Safe From Harm” – a late echo of Cobham’s own experiments with electronic percussion. In 1974, he recruited keyboardist George Duke, the Brecker brothers and guitarist John Abercrombie for the completely self-composed “Crosswinds”. In the same year, Cobham made his piano debut on “Total Eclipse” (“The Moon Ain’t Made Of Green Cheese”) and drummed solo on “Last Frontier”, while Abercrombie found the funk in the classic “Moon Germs”. But things didn’t get really funky until 1975 on “The Funky Thide Of Sings” (sic!), when John Scofield played guitar and Cobham immortalized perhaps his best solo with the quasi-title track “The Funky Kind Of Thing”. Finally, the album “Shabazz” presents Billy Cobham and his Total Eclipse band live in Montreux at the height of their abilities with two new compositions (title track, “Tenth Pin”) as well as exciting improvised new versions of the “Spectrum” pieces “Taurian Matador” and “Red Baron”.

Albums included:

• Spectrum
• Total Eclipse
• Crosswinds
• A Funky Thide Of Sings
• Shabazz

Spectrum
1-1 Quadrant 4
1-2a Searching For The Right Door
1-2b Spectrum
1-3a Anxiety
1-3b Taurian Matador
1-4 Stratus
1-5a To The Women In My Life
1-5b Le Lis
1-6a Snoopy’s Search
1-6b Red Baron

Total Eclipse
Solarization
2-2 Lunarputians
2-3 Total Eclipse
2-4 Bandits
2-5 Moon Germs
2-6 The Moon Ain’t Made Of Green Cheese
2-7 Sea Of Tranquility
2-8 Last Frontier

Crosswinds
Spanish Moss – “A Sound Portrait”
3-5 The Pleasant Pheasant
3-6 Heather
3-7 Crosswind

A Funky Thide Of Sings
4-1 Panhandler
4-2 Sorcery
4-3 A Funky Thide Of Sings
4-4 Thinking Of You
4-5 Some Skunk Funk
4-6 Light At The End Of The Tunnel
4-7 A Funky Kind Of Thing
4-8 Moody Modes

Shabazz
5-1 Shabazz
5-2 Taurian Matador
5-3 Red Baron
5-4 Tenth Pinn