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Spectrum
by Dean Nardi
Was it jazz or rock? This was (is) the eternal question about fusion. Back in the 1970s when the Mahavishnu Orchestra pioneered the genre, the electric and chaotic unpredictability of the John McLaughlin-led outfit cut across what was thought to be basic jazz concepts by displaying loud electric guitar riffing over what could stand for prog rock organ, bass and drum. And shockingly, none of the original players blew into their instruments. But Mahavishnu McLaughlin was as cruel ...
Continue ReadingBilly Cobham's Time Machine Live At The Blue Note
by Chris DeRosa
Billy CobhamThe Blue Note New York, NY March 23, 2025 Hello, my name is Chris DeRosa and this is what I heard... What can be said about Billy Cobham to describe the powerhouse he is and the musical force he has been over the last six decades? Days before his 81st birthday and just after hip surgery, we celebrate the achievements and joy Billy Cobham has brought to both the drumming ...
Continue ReadingBilly Cobham's Time Machine at Blue Note Jazz Club
by Dan Bilawsky
Science has yet to crack the space-time continuum. Music, however, can manage to do the trick. Billy Cobham, proving that point during his six-night stand at New York's Blue Note, transported listeners to another era. The octogenarian drumming icon used this platform as an opportunity to revisit and update the sounds of the '70s (and beyond), and the results were explosive. Leading a stacked band featuring tenor saxophonist Brandon Wilkins, trumpeter Randy Brecker, trombonist Marshall Gilkes, keyboardist Oz Ezzeldin and ...
Continue ReadingJohnny "Hammond" Smith: Wild Horses Rock Steady
by Arnaldo DeSouteiro
Born John Robert Smith on December 16, 1933 (in Louisville, KY), formerly known as Johnny Hammond Smith, and later as Johnnny Hammond, one of the all-time best jazz organists passed away on June 4, 1997, in Chicago, Illinois. For some of his early fans, some of the best albums he recorded were done for Prestige in the Sixties. A younger generation, who grew up listening to the hip-hop influenced jazz sounds of the 1990s, prefers Johnny's over-produced sessions for Milestone ...
Continue ReadingA look back at 1975 with Miles Davis, John Abercrombie and Billy Cobham
by Len Davis
Some hard-edged music from Miles Davis's Agharta, John Abercrombie and Jan Hammer's Timeless and Lenny White's Venusian Summer. Billy Cobham's Shabazz and the funky sounds from Herbie Hancock's Manchild. The powerful sounds of The Mahavishnu Orchestra's Visions Of The Emerald Beyond, Return To Forever's No Mystery and Stanley Clarke's Journey To Love. Playlist Miles Davis “Prelude 2" from Agharta (CBS) 00:00 John Abercrombie “Lungs" from Timeless (ECM)08:09 Lenny White “Mating Drive" from Venusian Summer (Nemperor) 16:21 Billy Cobham ...
Continue ReadingThe Electric Years Box Set
by Mike Jurkovic
In a year that has brought us a true bounty of previously unheard majesty including Evenings at the Village Gate: John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy (Impulse!), and Bill Evans; Treasures: Solo, Trio & Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965-1969), (Elemental Music) it is only fitting that Miles Davis get his due. And in a very, very big way. Seared into modern memory, modern art, the music presented on the gloriously massive, eleven LP set Miles Davis: The Electric Years ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell: Improvisations: Best of the Vanguard Years
by Josef Woodard
There have been many smoother operators in the world of jazz guitar than Larry Coryell, the brainy rough rider who was a natural-born fusioneer, in the best sense. There have been cleaner technicians on the instrument, with a more lucid sense of identity and careers that have followed a logical, rolling landscape. But not many have quite attained Coryell's strange, madly eclectic state of grace: into music he came, he saw and heard things not yet articulated, he conquered on ...
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