''Spectrum'' is the debut solo album by

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...

Billy Cobham. The song "Stratus" appears in the video game '' Grand Theft Auto IV'' on the radio station " Fusion FM", as well as being the main sample in the Massive Attack hit "

Safe from Harm ''Safe from Harm'' the second album from Dusted, was released in 2005. It was a reworking of the outfit's 2001 debut, and was accompanied by an 80-page, illustrated hardcover book with the same name. Track listing #"In the Beginning" – 4:06 # ...

Recording

The recording process took place at Electric Lady Studios. According to Leland Sklar it was done in just two or three days and almost every track that ended up on a record was "first or second take at the most". Ken Scott, engineer of ''Spectrum'', recounted: "Bill Cobham's drums were treated in exactly the same way as I recorded every other drummer. I just used more mics:

Neumann Neumann is German language, German and Yiddish language, Yiddish for "new man", and one of the List of the most common surnames in Europe#Germany, 20 most common German surnames. People * Von Neumann family, a Jewish Hungarian noble family A� ...

U67s on toms, D20s or RE20s (at Electric Lady) on the bass drums, Neumann KM54 or 56 on snare, and either STC 4038s or Beyer M160 ribbon mics for the overheads. One other thing: in order to dampen the snare, Bill just laid his wallet on the top head." Leland Sklar, bassist on four of the songs, remarked, "Spectrum is such a benchmark for so many people. There was a sort of fire in it. It was new ground and it wasn't very analytical. It was more flying by the seat of your pants. That's where great accidents happen, which seems impossible these days. We never did more than a couple of takes on any of it. It was more or less a two-day record. It went by so fast." Sklar and Hammer recall that the music was recorded live and was not fixed in any way afterwards, which, in particular, resulted in capturing Tommy Bolin breaking his high E string while soloing on "Taurian Matador" (approximately at 1:45 into the track) and continuing playing. Bolin used Fender Stratocaster and Maestro Echoplex delay unit, prominently heard on "Quadrant 4". Sklar attests that he played his 1962 Fender Jazz bass through a small Univox amp with a single 12″ speaker. Not as well known at the time, Tommy Bolin plays lead guitar on four songs. Cobham had met Bolin years before, when he was a member of

Zephyr In European tradition, a zephyr is a light wind or a west wind, named after Zephyrus, the Greek god or personification of the west wind. Zephyr may also refer to: Arts and media Fiction Fiction media * ''Zephyr'' (film), a 2010 Turkish ...

. Bolin had recently joined rock band

James Gang James Gang is an American rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1966. The band went through a variety of line-up changes until they recorded their first album as a power trio consisting of Joe Walsh (guitars, lead vocals), Tom Kriss (bass), and ...

, and recorded his first album with that band just two months prior to the ''Spectrum'' sessions. "To the Women in My Life" is unusual in that Cobham himself does not play on it, though he did produce the track. It is an unaccompanied piano piece performed by

Jan Hammer Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as his film scores fo ...

Critical reception

''Spectrum'' received positive reviews from contemporary critics. However,

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

offered a dissenting review for '' Creem'' magazine, calling Cobham "Mahavishnu's muscle-headed muscle man" and saying, "Despite a few tough minutes this is basically slick, gimmicky, one-dimensional—in a word, undemanding. All of which may make him a star."

Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.Allmusic Biography/ref> Biography Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles an ...

was more impressed by the record, writing years later in his review for AllMusic that ''Spectrum'' remains Cobham's best and an exceptional

album with "rock-ish rhythms and jazz improvising".

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Billy Cobham. # "Quadrant 4" – 4:20 # "Searching for the Right Door" – 1:19 / "Spectrum" – 5:07 # "Anxiety" – 1:41 / "Taurian Matador" – 3:03 # "Stratus" – 9:48 # "To the Women in My Life" – 0:51 / "Le Lis" – 3:20 # "Snoopy's Search" – 1:02 / "Red Baron" – 6:37 Though tracks 2, 3, 5, and 6 are designated as medleys, all of the component songs have clean breaks between them. Most recent CD issues list 10 tracks.

Personnel

* Billy Cobham -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, percussion, production *

- electric and acoustic pianos,

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 20 ...

* Ken Scott - recording and re-mix engineering ;Additional personnel on "Quadrant 4", "Taurian Matador", "Stratus", and "Red Baron" * Tommy Bolin - guitar, Echoplex *

Lee Sklar Leland Bruce Sklar (born May 28, 1947) is an American bassist and session musician. Sklar rose to prominence as a member of James Taylor's backing band, which coaleced into a group in its own right, The Section. This group of musicians so fre ...

- electric bass ;Additional personnel on "Spectrum" and "Le Lis" * Joe Farrell -

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

and alto saxes,

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

* Jimmy Owens -

flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B, though some ...

, trumpet * John Tropea - guitar on "Le Lis" *

Ron Carter Ronald Levin Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history. He has won three Grammy awards, and is also a cellist who has recorded nu ...

- acoustic bass *

Ray Barretto Raymundo "Ray" Barretto Pagán (April 29, 1929 – February 17, 2006) was an American percussionist and bandleader of Puerto Rican descent. Throughout his career as a percussionist, he played a wide variety of Latin music styles, as well as Lati ...

- congas

Chart performance

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1973 debut albums Albums recorded at Electric Lady Studios Atlantic Records albums Billy Cobham albums Albums recorded at Trident Studios