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Music

Jazzwise Sneak Peek

By Jazzwise Mag

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https://covver.com/magazine/jazzwise/jazzwise-sneak-peek
Published
Mar 19, 2025
Pages
10
Language
English

More in this magazine

  • Jazz se BILLYCOBHAM Brings Spectrum ON W
  • 18 Jazzwise ▪ July 2024Billy's Full Spectrum Dominance
  • Page 3N Mahavishnu's intensity, tremendous volume, challenging time signatures and sheer velocity of execution forced Cobham, as he would later admit, to compete physically in terms of stamina and speed, his performances a vital element in the success of musicians contemplate in how-does-he-do-it wonder. With the fiftieth anniversary of the release of his hit album Spectrum last year he has once again returned to the touring circuit, and UK audiences will have an opportunity of seeing a living legend as he headlines at the Love Supreme Festival on Saturday 6 July and at his 80th birthday celebration at the EFG London Jazz Festival on Wednesday 20 November at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
  • Page 4Bobby Colomby, there was a whole bunch of them, Al Foster, the list goes on, all working their way to graduation. Warren Smith was a teacher there, a great percussionist with Gil Evans. It was perfect for me, not only was it a music school but it was also an art school, so the late Jeremy Steig, known for being proficient playing the flute, was actually a painter. He was studying painting, but he was a good flute player, made some great records. In a situation like in High School, the requirement was that you play together with your colleagues, and to be really good at contributing as a participant; so therefore my foundation was very strong. They had Billy Cobham, who was a sensation, he could create these kind of pyrotechnic things people had never heard before and when Michael Brecker soloed it was so far ahead!"
  • Page 5lot of time if you have a front line of - hypothetically - Joe Henderson, J.J Johnson and Freddie Hubbard. The thank-yous you get are not in words. When someone calls you on the phone and asks you, 'Are you free tomorrow for a session that starts at 10am, probably a double session, that's your thank-you for the things which you did before. They don't say, 'that sounds good, no, they ask you to come tomorrow. That's it. "After while I grew stale, and things were changing anyway because of rock n' roll, so I ended up on the road with a series of things I felt I could be a better contributor at"
  • Page 6BACK WITH A BANG! Neil Cowley has decided to re-form his famous trio after performing and recording as a solo artist for seven years. Here he tells Andy Robson why, and what he hopes to achieve...
  • Page 7Neil Cowley was born to a caring, nurturing mum after she had a brief affair with Max Miller's musical director. His father, who led a trio, never told his own family of their half-brother's existence. So, there were secrets within secrets for Cowley. "Every fortnight he would call from a phone box, tell me a joke and the pips would go before he got to the punch line. And every couple years we'd go to Brighton (to meet him)."
  • TURNING POINT"Clark Terry's sound, his phrasing, his articulation, wasn't like anything I had ever heard before." The trumpeter and Banger Factory Records boss Mark Kavuma tells Brian Glasser that it's an album by Clark Terry and Thelonious Monk that changed his life hen I knew that I was going to do this [interview], I thought "There can only be onel'
  • Album InterviewNubya Garcia Odyssey
  • SUBSCRIBE TO jazzwiseNever miss an issue of the UK's only print and digital jazz magazine Jazzwise has been at the heart of the global jazz scene since the magazine's launch in 1997, changing the way jazz publications look and think for the last three decades, with a stunning editorial and design package that reaches out worldwide to both the new jazz audience and established fans - qualities that have led to it winning Jazz Publication of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Awards and the Jazz FM Awards.
Text of this page

Mahavishnu's intensity, tremendous volume, challenging time signatures and sheer velocity of execution forced Cobham, as he would later admit, to compete physically in terms of stamina and speed, his performances a vital element in the success of musicians contemplate in how-does-he-do-it wonder. With the fiftieth anniversary of the release of his hit album Spectrum last year he has once again returned to the touring circuit, and UK audiences will have an opportunity of seeing a living legend as he headlines at the Love Supreme Festival on Saturday 6 July and at his 80th birthday celebration at the EFG London Jazz Festival on Wednesday 20 November at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Billy Cobham was born in Panama City on 16 May 1944, but was raised in Brooklyn from the age of three.

In those formative years he had two main interests: music and baseball.

"I worked in marching bands as a young person. It was one of the things that kept me off the street.

the band.

He massively expanded his drum kit with two bass drums; and the SA array of tuned tom-toms spread out in front were not for decoration. His renowned technical prowess enabled blisteringly fast fills around his tom-toms that still sound awesome today and were imitated by drummers around the world. As the Percussive Arts Society noted, "Billy Cobham is one of the very few who can be called a pivotal drummer in music history. He changed the way we set up our drums and cymbals, he changed the way we play them and he changed the way we play music."

Ever since his halcyon days in the 1970s and 1980s, Cobham's performances have been the stuff of legend, combining the techniques of jazz with the visceral

I played baseball in contests everywhere, that's the thing with being young, you really want to be the best at what you do," he reflects. Precociously talented, he passed the entrance examination for New York's High School Of Music And Art at the age of 14, an institution that attracted talented students across all New York boroughs, "I walked in with my rudimental procedures off pat because I worked extensively in marching bands. When I attended, my colleagues were Jimmy Owens, Eddie Gomez, Larry Willis - a great jazz pianist but he was a voice major then - Janis Ian, Laura Nyro, Fred Lipsius from Blood Sweat & Tears, Lew Soloff, power of rock, a compelling duality that audiences love and Billy behind his signature kit - Photo courtesy billycobham.com

Jazzwise ■ July 2024 - 19

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