''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 improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and key ...

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western bands that play rock, pop, jazz, or R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeeping and embellishing the musical timbre. The drummer' ...

Billy Cobham. The song "Stratus" appears in the video game ''

Grand Theft Auto IV ''Grand Theft Auto IV'' is a 2008 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the sixth main entry in the ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2004's '' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'', and the ...

'' of the radio station " Fusion FM", as well as being the main sample in the

Massive Attack Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. The debut Massive Attack album '' Blue Lines'' was rele ...

hit " Safe from Harm".

Recording

The recording process took place at

Electric Lady Studios Electric Lady Studios is a recording studio in Greenwich Village, New York City. It was commissioned by rock musician Jimi Hendrix in 1968 and designed by architect John Storyk and audio engineer Eddie Kramer by 1970. Hendrix spent only ten w ...

. According to

Leland 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 frequ ...

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."

, 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 The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...

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 Turki ...

. Bolin had recently joined rock band

James Gang James Gang is an American Rock music, 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 ...

, 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.

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 ''Creem'' (often stylized in all caps) is a monthly American music magazine, based in Detroit, whose main print run lasted from 1969 to 1989. It was first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. Influential cri ...

'' 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 a ...

was more impressed by the record, writing years later in his review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

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 auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

, percussion, production * Jan Hammer - electric and

acoustic piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musica ...

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 2014 ...

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

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

Echoplex The Echoplex is a tape delay effect, first made in 1959. Designed by Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s—it is still regarded as "the standard by which everything else is measured." It was used by some of th ...

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 frequ ...

electric bass The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

;Additional personnel on "Spectrum" and "Le Lis" *

Joe Farrell Joseph Carl Firrantello (December 16, 1937 – January 10, 1986), known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who primarily performed as a saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name o ...

- soprano and

alto sax The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B t ...

es, flute * 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 The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standar ...

John Tropea John Tropea (pronounced 'tro-pay'; born January 7, 1946) is an American guitarist. Career Tropea began guitar studies at the age of 12. His musical education continued at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied jazz guitar, harmony, ...

- 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 n ...

- 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