The Atlantic Years 1973-1978 Billy Cobham

• Spectrum
• 1 Quadrant 4 04:20
• 2 Searching For The Right Door 01:24
• 3 Spectrum 05:09
• 4 Anxiety 01:42
• 5 Taurian Matador 03:05
• 6 Stratus 09:48
• 7 To The Women In My Life 00:51
• 8 Le Lis 03:20
• 9 Snoopy's Search 01:02
• 10 Red Baron 06:41
• 11 All 4 One 04:13
• 12 Stratus - Pt. I 03:29
• 13 Stratus - Pt. I 03:30
• 14 Stratus - Pt. II 03:03
• Crosswinds
• 15 Spanish Moss - A Sound Portrait (2015 Remastered) 17:37
• 16 The Pleasant Pheasant 05:18
• 17 Heather 08:38
• 18 Crosswind 03:46
• 19 Crosswind 02:42
• 20 Le Lis 03:22
• Total Eclipse
• 21 Solarization: Solarization / Second Phase / Crescent Sun / Voyage / Solarization - Recapitulation 11:10
• 22 Lunarputians 02:32
• 23 Total Eclipse 05:58
• 24 Bandits 02:32
• 25 Moon Germs 04:56
• 26 The Moon Ain't Made Of Green Cheese 00:58
• 27 Sea Of Tranquility 10:44
• 28 Last Frontier 05:25
• 29 Moon Germs 02:55
• Shabazz
• 30 Shabazz 13:48
• 31 Taurian Matador 05:30
• 32 Red Baron 06:39
• 33 Tenth Pinn 14:01
• A Funky Thide Of Sings
• 34 Panhandler 04:06
• 35 Sorcery 02:24
• 36 A Funky Thide Of Sings 03:38
• 37 Thinking Of You 04:29
• 38 Some Skunk Funk 05:09
• 39 Light At The End Of The Tunnel 03:38
• 40 A Funky Kind Of Thing 09:16
• 41 Moody Modes 12:16
• 42 Neu Rock N' Roll 06:21
• Life & Times
• 43 Life & Times 07:01
• 44 29 02:36
• 45 Siesta / Wake Up / That's What I Said 03:59
• 46 East Bay 06:08
• 47 Earthlings 05:06
• 48 Song For A Friend (Part I) 05:07
• 49 On A Natural High 05:18
• 50 Song For A Friend (Part II) 04:43
• 51 Natural Essence (Produced By Billy Cobham) - Atlantic Single 45-3210 Out Of Darkness 03:19
• 52 Natural Essence (Produced By Billy Cobham) - Atlantic Single 45-3210 Out Of Darkness 02:59
• Live On Tour In Europe (with George Duke)
• 53 Hip Pockets 07:06
• 54 Ivory Tattoo 04:41
• 55 Space Lady 04:37
• 56 Almustafa The Beloved 06:54
• 57 Do What Cha Wanna 04:35
• 58 Frankenstein Goes To The Disco 07:17
• 59 Sweet Wine 03:54
• 60 Juicy 07:23
• 61 Do What Cha Wanna 03:48
• 62 Hip Pockets 05:10
• Inner Conflicts
• 63 Inner Conflicts 10:42
• 64 The Muffin Talks Back 09:56
• 65 Nickels And Dimes 07:23
• 66 El Barrio 06:34
• 67 Arroyo 04:20
• Total Runtime 06:12:01

Info for The Atlantic Years 1973-1978

Spectrum heißt das Album, mit dem Jazz-Schlagzeuger BILLY COBHAM im Jahr 1973 seinen Einstand als Bandleader feierte und bald zur Legende wurde. Rau, gewagt und mit Adrenalin gefüllt, katapultierte sich das Album umgehend auf Platz 1 der Billboard Jazz Charts. Hier präsentierte er zum ersten Mal seinen ureigenen Mix aus Jazz, Rock und Funk und etablierte sich endgültig als Solokünstler. Im Jahr 1974 schaffte es Spectrum sogar auf Platz 24 der allgemeinen US-Charts!

Der 1944 in Panama geborene Drummer hatte schon bei Miles Davis, Horace Silver und Mose Alison mit seinem außergewöhnlichen Können für Furore gesorgt, als er 1971 in John McLaughlins Mahavishnu Orchestra einstieg und bei den Fans Kultstaus erreichte. 1973 unterschrieb er als Solokünstler bei Atlantic und veröffentlichte daraufhin eine ganze Reihe von Solo-Alben die ihm den Ruf eines der weltbesten Drummer verliehen. Mittlerweile im fünften Jahrzehnt seiner Solokarriere, gilt er heute als Titan unter den Jazz-Schlagzeugern.

Die 8 Album-Set „The Atlantic Years 1973-1978“ enthält die acht Solo-Alben, die bei Atlantic veröffentlicht wurden.

Einige Outtakes und Single-Edits, die seit den siebziger Jahren nicht mehr erhältlich waren, ergänzen das Repertoire der Alben: So entstand All 4 One während der Sessions zu Spectrum im Jahr 1973, und Neu Rock & Roll stammt aus den 1975er Sessions zu A Funky Side Of Things. Die Single Stratus aus Spectrum (die von Massive Attack für ihren Song „Safe From Harm“ gesamplet wurde) findet sich jeweils im Stereo- und im Mono-Edit auf Spectrum. Die Crosswinds-Single Crosswind / Le Lis (1974), die Single Moon Germs aus Total Eclipse (1974) und die Single Do What Cha Wanna / Hip Pockets aus dem Album Live On Tour In Europe (With George Duke) (1976) waren seit den Erstveröffentlichungen in den siebziger Jahren nicht mehr erhältlich. Das musikalische Paket wird von der Natural Essence-Single von 1974 mit Out Of Darkness / It’s You I Need abgerundet, auf denen COBHAM sich auch als Producer bewies.

Das Repertoire wirft zudem einen Blick auf die vielfältigen Kollaborationen COBHAMs mit den Fusion-Pionieren Jan Hammer, Tommy Bolin, John Abercrombie, John Williams, Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker, Cornell Dupree, John Scofield und Alphonso Johnson.

Billy Cobham
Ever since his breakthrough in the early 1970s-as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and as a drummer/leader whose recordings (such as Spectrum) and powerful, complex style of play exerted a strong influence on the course of jazz and jazz-fusion-Billy Cobham has remained a tireless musical explorer.

Panamanian by birth, a New Yorker by upbringing, and a resident of Switzerland for more than 25 years, Cobham has pursued an ever-broadening, ever-deepening engagement with the world not only as a master drummer and percussionist but as a composer, producer, educator, and clinician who gives service through music even as he constantly expands his personal creative expression.

Cobham's newest recording, Fruit from the Loom-released in April 2008 through his own imprint, Creative MultiMedia Concepts, Inc. (CMMC)-is a suitably wide-ranging representation of his roots and his journeys. He reprises two of his best-known compositions from the '70s, "Spectrum" and "Crosswinds," by incorporating violin on the former and steel pan on the latter. "I've always found it difficult to focus upon one direction in music," Cobham notes, "so I've resigned myself to projecting ideas and thoughts through a musical kaleidoscope, from Latin to rock and jazz. This version of 'Spectrum' is a testament to that idea."

On the new CD, he also utilizes a string quartet (on "Faia") and percussion ensembles-with Cobham himself playing all the parts on "Samba du Militairestrasse" and Nigerian friends joining him on "Thoughts from Okuta." Experiences from travels in Brazil are captured in "Eggshells Still on My Head" and "Florianapolis," while the Bocas del Toro islands off the eastern coast of Panama-which Cobham describes as a place where "it is easy for me to relax and generally mellow out"-inspire the buoyant "Sweet Bocas."

Fruit from the Loom, dedicated to the memory of Cobham's parents William and Ivy, features support from longtime colleagues including organist Brian Auger, bassists Victor Bailey and Stefan Rademacher, saxophonist Ernie Watts, guitarists Dean Brown and Jean-Marie Ecay, and, on steel pan, Junior Gill.

Cobham is also the centerpiece of a new 90-minute documentary by director Mika Kaurismäki entitled Sonic Mirror. The genesis of the film dates back to 2001, when Kaurismäki approached the drummer about producing a portrait of his life and times. "But then we started to think of other ways of doing it," the director reveals. "We finally decided to do a film about Billy and some of his projects, focusing on rhythm and music as communication and universal language."

To Cobham, the term "sonic mirror" means "a sound reflection of everything that I experience, or that one experiences, in music. It's almost like a radio parabolic dish, where all of the radio signals come in, are processed, and reflected back to the presenter."

The film, which takes place in Switzerland, New York, Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), and Helsinki (Finland) and which was released in April 2007, has screened at film festivals in Munich and Cologne, Germany; Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil; Pusan, South Korea; Gijón, Spain; Adelaide, Australia; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's also had a commercial release in France. A multiple-disc DVD release is currently in the works, focusing on the concert in Finland with Randy Brecker; Malê Debalê, a Bahian bloco afro; the Glarus concert (with Swiss musicians and yodeling choir); Okuta Percussion and Autistics; and the Okuta Percussion concert.

The Hollywood Reporter described Sonic Mirror as "a feel-good world music documentary with the potential to be the next Buena Vista Social Club." But for Cobham, more fundamentally, "it verifies the value of music as an important factor in this world. If used for the greater good, it can be a powerful ally."

Billy Cobham was born in Colón, Panama on May 16, 1944. The family relocated to the U.S. in the winter of '47, living first in Harlem and then in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. "Music was all around me," he recalls. "Primarily either Latin music-folclórico or típico, as they called it in Panama-or jazz."

Cobham, whose first paying gig came at age eight, courtesy of his pianist father, cut his teeth on drumming as a member of St. Catherine's Queensmen, a drum and bugle corps in St. Albans, Queens. He went on to attend New York's famed High School of Music and Art, where he studied music theory and drum technique alongside some of today's great musical legends, including trumpeter Jimmy Owens, bassist Eddie Gomez, and pianist Larry Willis. At the time, "jazz was a bit off-limits to students while classical music was preferred by the education establishment. So of course students craved to connect with jazz artists in any way that they could, be it chance encounters at school lectures or via LP recordings that they could study and eventually emulate."

After military service, during which he played in the U.S. Army Band as percussionist (1965-68), Cobham began working in Horace Silver's band. (While on a European tour with Silver in 1968 he became one of the first percussionists, along with Max Roach and Tony Williams, to use the Electronic Drum Controller made by the Meazzi Drum Company in Milan.) He also performed with Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott, and recorded with George Benson.

In 1969 Cobham co-founded the fusion group Dreams, which also featured Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker, John Abercrombie, Don Grolnick, Barry Rodgers, and Will Lee. The following year he was invited to join Miles Davis's group and contributed to four pivotal recordings by the trumpeter, including Bitches Brew (where he collaborated with guitarist John McLaughlin) and Tribute to Jack Johnson.

Mahavishnu Orchestra was formed by McLaughlin in 1971 with Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman, and Rick Laird. They released three acclaimed albums (beginning with Inner Mounting Flame) before the band was dissolved and Cobham chose to launch his solo career with Spectrum, one of the definitive albums of the jazz-rock era.

During the 1970s and '80s, he recorded steadily as a leader for Atlantic, CBS, Elektra, and GRP, collaborating with artists ranging from George Duke, John Scofield, and Tony Williams to Jack Bruce and the Grateful Dead, both on stage and in the studio. For more visit: www.billycobham.com

This album contains no booklet.