Billy Cobham - Spectrum (1973 Japanese Atlantic Vinyl LP Gatefold)

Billy Cobham - Spectrum | Vinyl LP Gatefold - 1973 Japanese Atlantic (P-8384A, Warner-Pioneer Corporation)

Cobham had been the drummer in the Mahavishnu Orchestra since 1971 and by the middle of 1973 the band was coming apart. John McLaughlin wrote everything and led it accordingly, the sessions intended to become a third studio album collapsed, and Columbia put out a live record instead. Cobham had seen it coming and had a solo album ready. He went into Electric Lady, the studio Jimi Hendrix built, on 14 May 1973 with Hammer, Bolin and Sklar and cut most of the record in three days. What came out is heavier than Mahavishnu and considerably funkier. "Quadrant 4" opens at full speed with Bolin playing rock guitar over Cobham's kit, and Bolin is the reason the album crossed over the way it did: he was 21, he was not a jazz musician, and within two years he had replaced Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple. Hammer plays acoustic piano, electric piano and Moog, sometimes at once, and the Moog is used as a drum voice on the solos in "Stratus" and "Snoopy's Search" rather than as a keyboard. "Red Baron" closes the album on a groove that producers have been returning to ever since.

The two exceptions are what lift the record above being simply a loud one. "Spectrum" and "Le Lis" replace Bolin and Sklar with an acoustic ensemble, Ron Carter on double bass, Ray Barretto on congas, Jimmy Owens on flugelhorn and trumpet, John Tropea on guitar and Joe Farrell moving between flute, soprano and alto saxophone. Those tracks breathe in a way nothing else here does. The album reached number one on the Billboard jazz chart and number 26 on the Top 200, which surprised Cobham and Atlantic both.

This is the 1973 Japanese gatefold pressing on Atlantic P-8384A, made by Warner-Pioneer Corporation.