Billy cobham drummer

Experience as a young person. I would love to do it now knowing what I know.”Ray Shasho: Who are some of the drummers that you admire?Billy Cobham: “A drummer that I really admire, living now, would be Roy Haynes. In the past … Elvin Jones, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson and Mel Lewis, those are the guys that I looked at and felt a kind of kindred feeling with.”Ray Shasho: What do you think about Buddy Miles as a drummer?Billy Cobham: “I thought he was amazing. He was amazing from the standpoint of consistency … he laid it down! I’m still trying to understand how a man with a Caribbean accent would come out of Omaha, Nebraska. So I always wondered where does this cat come from. He could have sang with the three tenors, just a wonderful voice, and then to turnaround and learn to play the guitar backwards… that’s just plain not fair (all laughing). To me he even sounded better when he played guitar and sang.”Ray Shasho: Billy, thank you for being on the Skype call this afternoon. More importantly for all the incredible music you’ve given to all of us and continue to bring. We’ll see you September 20th at the Palladium Theatre in St. Petersburg.Billy Cobham: “Take care Ray, see you in Florida!”Billy Cobham will be performing the 40th anniversary of his classic Spectrum album on Friday, September 20th at the Palladium Theatre in St. Petersburg, for tickets and information visit www.mypalladium.org or call 727-822-3590 for more information.Billy Cobham official website www.billycobham.comPurchase Billy Cobham’s 2-CD set entitled 'Compass Point' at amazon.comVisit Billy Cobham on FacebookVery special thanks to Nancy Balik FitzGerald of Whole Picture Media, LLC and Billy James of Glass Onyon PRCOMING UP ...Interviews with Melanie, Burton Cummings and Gary Wright.Contact classic rock music journalist

Be known as one of the greatest drummer’s on the planet.I had a rare opportunity recently to chat with Billy about his phenomenal career.Here’s my interview with virtuoso drummer, percussionist, songwriter, bandleader and instructor… BILLY COBHAM.I chatted with Billy by Skype from Panama and during the interview a nasty storm hit his home.Ray Shasho: Thank you for being on the Skype call this afternoon Billy, how are things in Panama?Billy Cobham: “Well, it’s the rainy season right now. It’s all doing good generally speaking, very humid and you get a lot of electrical storms and right now we’re up against it. The weather is kind of weird in this part of the world, from the north to the south anyway. I guess we’re getting more than we normally would, so we deal with it that’s all. I was on a flight coming in from Costa Rica and got hit by lightning and that was not very funny. Thank God things got sorted out so most planes are able to deal with that, we were lucky, obviously we didn’t get as bad of a hit as it could’ve been, but I don’t need the aggravation (All laughing).”Ray Shasho: Billy, you’ll be at The Palladium Theatre at St. Petersburg College on September 20th and performing the 40th anniversary of the classic ‘Spectrum’ album?Billy Cobham: “It will be music from the Spectrum album and new arrangements from my side, but what I wanted to do was to bring in people whom I’ve worked with for the last forty years whom I’ve felt very comfortable with, not just as colleagues but as very good friends. Needless to say, Dean Brown headed the list; he’s been with me off and on since 1984. Gary Husband started working with me since about 1990; the youngest one

Fusion genre and jazz rock era.Also in 1973, Cobham toured with John Mclaughlin and Carlos Santana performing material from the Love Devotion Surrender album.The original lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra disbanded in 1974.Billy Cobham continued to record innovative fusion albums with the release of … Crosswinds (1974), Shabazz (1974) Total Eclipse (1974) A Funky Thide of Sings (1975), and Life and Times (1976).During the 70’s and 80’s … Cobham recorded for Atlantic, CBS, Elektra, and GRP. He collaborated with George Duke, John Scofield, Tony Williams, Jack Bruce, and The Grateful Dead spinoff band Bobby & the Midnites.In 1992, Cobham was appointed to work with UNISEF to work with autistic outpatients and street children in Santos, Brazil in a musical project.Rudiments: The Billy Cobham Anthology, 2- CD retrospective was released in 2001.In 2002, Billy Cobham began releasing a series of CD’s with special guest artists entitled … Drum n Voice.By 2005, Cobham had recorded and released over 30 recordings under his name.Over the past several years, Cobham developed a very special musical collaboration with the Cuban group Asere.In 2011, Cobham began teaching drums online at The Jazz & Fusion Drum School with Billy Cobham.Most recently … Purple Pyramid Records released the Billy Cobham Compass Point 2-CD set, recorded live at Compass Point Hotel in the Bahamas in 1997…never released before until now.Billy Cobham will also be performing the 40th anniversary of his classic Spectrum album on Friday, September 20th at the Palladium Theatre in St. Petersburg, for tickets and information visit www.mypalladium.org or call 727-822-3590 for more information.I found it very difficult to summarize Billy Cobham’s illustrious musical career in a single article. His alliances with the greatest musicians in the world are almost endless. The one thing about his career I can easily summarize is that …Billy Cobham will forever

By Ray ShashoJazz and jazz fusion musician, composer, and bandleader Billy Cobham has for decades been respected as one of the greatest drummer’s on the planet.Born in Panama and brought up in Brooklyn, New York, Cobham got his first paying gig at the age of eight as a member of St. Catherine’s Queensmen, a drum and bugle corps in St. Albans, Queens. Billy attended New York’s renowned High School of Music and Art, where he studied music theory and drum technique. While in the military (1965-1968), Cobham played with the U.S Army Band as percussionist. After the military, Cobham began working in Horace Silver’s Band. He also performed with Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott, and recorded with George Benson.In 1969, Billy Cobham co-founded the jazz-rock combo Dreams. The band featured Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker, John Abercrombie, Don Grolnick, Barry Rodgers, and Will Lee. The following year he was invited to join Miles Davis’ new fusion ensemble. Cobham contributed on … Live-Evil, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and the Bitches Brew sessions where he collaborated with guitarist John Mclaughlin.In 1971, John Mclaughlin formed the jazz-fusion Mahavishnu Orchestra with Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman, and Rick Laird. The original lineup released three critically-acclaimed albums … The Inner Mounting Flame (1971), Birds of Fire (1973), and Between Nothingness and Eternity (live album released in 1973).In 1973, Billy Cobham released his debut solo album entitled Spectrum. The album was recorded at Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Cobham’s core lineup for the album featured guitar virtuoso Tommy Bolin, Jan Hammer on electric piano, moog synthesizer & piano and Lee Sklar on bass. The album featured an incredible mix of jazz, funk, and rock. The recording was hailed as one of the most important albums in the development of the jazz

In the bunch is Ric Fierabracci who started working with me since the late 90’s or so. It’s kind of nice to have people around me at this time in my life that I feel I can trust and feel comfortable with. So they bring not just their performance but I’ve invited them to write some additional material that they feel best suits the four of us.”Ray Shasho: Billy, you look like you’re in your 40’s man, I can’t believe that your 69 years old. How do you do it?Billy Cobham: “By hanging out in a place like Panama, staying quiet …it’s called stress management. If you can do that and do everything in moderation and keep a smile on your face most of the time, even when things go really south, you’ll be alright (all laughing).”Ray Shasho: You’ve worked with a Cuban group called ‘Asere’ over the past few years or so? Billy Cobham: “I haven’t work with them for more than two or three years now, it’s really difficult to get them out of there for any length of time, there are just a lot of restrictions. The band hasn’t had enough going on financially to justify them leaving the country and their family behind. End result is they just can’t go anywhere. It would be nice for the rest of the world to hear that band. They are just so dedicated, it’s not just a hobby, it’s their life. There’s a whole lot of musicians in Cuba that do what they do and they fall somewhere around the middle to the lower end, you can only imagine what’s going on at the top of the heap. It’s just rockin’!”“The band keeps changing because these guys have to work, but with me they were the same guys for