Back when I was a professional musician, I was a Billy Cobham fan. I considered Cobham to be a "monster", someone who had enough chops in any two limbs to be able to simultaneously outplay any two of his contemporaries as you might care to name. But despite abilities far beyond those of mere mortals, he was secure enough in his exceptional abilities as a musician to ride behind someone else's time in the spotlight.
After playing six sets of Top 40 and pop dance tunes for inebriated dancing revelers, it was good to be able to put on Cobham's music. He was able to stretch out musically in ways we were denied due to the nature of our engagements. Listening to music that required some thought to follow, and which would require improvement in our technique to play ourselves, kept us from imploding due to disco overload.
Flight Time, a release of fusion jazz tracks recorded live during his 1980 European tour, is a fine showcase of Cobham's abilities as both a drummer and a band leader. For his recordings, leader Cobham always selected musicians whose musical abilities challenged his own as a drummer as the lineup for Flight Time demonstrates. Each of the tracks offers plenty of vintage Cobham to go along with their musical expertise.
Not to be missed movements include bassist Tim Landers be-bop flavored solo on the title track, keyboardist Don Grolnick's lush open grand piano voicing echoing McCoy Tyner at his most melodic on "6 Persimmons", and guitarist Barry Finnerty's traditional jazz guitar techniques displayed in an unconventional style, emulating a two-handed keyboard performance without accompaniment as the introduction to "Princess".
But the center of the attention is always Cobham, setting the pace, driving the dynamics, and establishing the mood. It doesn't matter if it's traditional-style brushed snare as on "6 Persimmons", a ethereal touch as on "Princess", or a more dynamic syncopation as on "The Whisperer", where the band at one point plays the accompaniment to Cobham's out-front solo.
Article comments
1 - duane
Nice writeup, Realist. Cobham is, as you say, a monster drummer. I recently read an old interview with (as I recall) Jeff Berlin, one of my favorite bass players, where he comments (I'm paraphrasing) that Bill Bruford (who is my favorite drummer) was heavily influenced by Cobham, but always felt like he would be in Billy's musical shadow. That impressed me no end.
I had the privilege of seeing Cobham's funky fusion band in a small venue (circa 1980) and was just knocked out. Those were the days when I, too, was playing in a pop/disco band six nights a week, and felt like I needed to be cleansed by good music. God, it reminds me of what a musical morass the world was in back then, and I'd rather forget about it.