''Spectrum'' is the debut solo album by

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

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western music ensemble, bands that play Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, or Contemporary R&B, R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeepi ...

Billy Cobham William Emanuel Cobham Jr. (born May 16, 1944) is a Panamanian–American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was inducted into the '' Mode ...

. 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, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2004's ''Grand Theft Auto: San And ...

'' on 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, England, by Robert Del Naja, Robert "3D" Del Naja, Daddy G, Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, Tricky (musician), Adrian "Tricky" Thaws and Andrew Vowles, Andrew "Mushroom" ...

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. It was completed by 1970. Hendrix ...

. According to

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

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 a German language, German surname, with its origins in the pre-7th-century (Old English) word ''wikt:neowe, neowe'' meaning "new", with ''wikt:mann, mann'', meaning man. The English form of the name is Newman. Von Neumann is a varian ...

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 as well as pianist

Jan Hammer Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He rose to prominence while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as with his film scores for television an ...

recall that the music was recorded live and was not edited or fixed in any way afterwards. This recording method captured Tommy Bolin breaking his high E string while soloing on "Taurian Matador" (approximately at 1:45 into the track) and continuing playing. Bolin used a Fender

Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double- cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporati ...

and a 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 Fictional characters * Zephyr (comics), in the Marvel Comics univers ...

. Bolin had recently joined rock band James Gang, 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 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 influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

offered a dissenting review for ''

Creem ''Creem'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American rock music magazine and entertainment company, founded in Detroit, whose initial print run lasted from 1969 to 1989. It was first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor ...

'' 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 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Life and career Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Beginning in 1974, Yanow was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles and was the jazz e ...

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 database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

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

. # "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

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, percussion, production *

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

and

acoustic piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal tempe ...

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...

* 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 stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

Echoplex The Echoplex is a tape delay effects unit, first made in 1959. Designed by engineer Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s; according to Michael Dregni, it is still regarded as "the standard by which everything e ...

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

electric bass The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an electric but with a longer neck and scale leng ...

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

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical 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 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral ...

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 the key of E, smaller th ...

es,

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

* 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 ...

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

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

- 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 Cello, cellist who has reco ...

- 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