A living legend of drumming, Billy Cobham brings his influential ‘jazz fusion’ to New Zealand this week at WOMAD in New Plymouth on March 16-18. He talks about his artform to Lumičre Music Editor BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM.


THERE IS LITTLE that drummer Bill Cobham has not done in his forty year music career. He’s drummed for Miles Davis (a small part on Bitches Brew and more prominently on the classics A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Live-Evil). He worked on one of the most influential fusion bands of all-time, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, released highly successful solo albums, collaborated with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Stewart Copeland of The Police claimed he was taught how to play properly by Cobham and he’s still playing around the world today. Regarded as one of the greatest ever fusion drummers, Cobham brings his live show to New Plymouth for the WOMAD festival.

Cobham was born in Panama, and came from a very musical family. “I was born into it. I came from a family of musicians, I just happened to choose it. It was always drumming”. His love for drumming was inspired by watching his cousins make and play steel drums and congas in Panama. His uncompromising style was self-taught, a style that proved highly successful in the improvisatory world of jazz. “Absolutely, [self-teaching] did help me quite a bit. You learn on your own. Your preparation has to be technically based. To improvise is a very important element. What you tend to do is you listen to it. You build your repertoire with pieces that are commonly used. You put your own stamp. You become comfortable with it. You then are able to build to something harder. It’s just like learning how to speak or read. You don’t use big words straightaway or you read things like comics first.”

Cobham attended New York’s High School of Music and Art, a highly prestigious and intensive place. He learnt under jazz legends Thelonious Monk and Stan Getz, finding himself in love with the intricacies of jazz. His love of jazz came through very strongly in the interview. “Jazz is music for the intelligentsia. People are like lemmings, they follow popular music. In order to get something new you have this very rich food. Jazz will never compete with popular music. It’s too rich.”

Following a stint in the Army, Cobham found himself in Mile Davis’ Bitches Brew band. The free-jazz masterpiece, in which Cobham played a small role, featured some of the greatest jazz musicians to have ever played including Davis himself, Wayne Shorter, and John McLaughlin, Chick Corea. No doubt it would have had a huge impact on any musician. Cobham said it was basically “school. Fundamentally. Nice to be a specialized fly just sitting there as a drummer. I tried to be quiet, observe, take from the situation and experience, elements.” It also played a huge role in his development as not only a musician, but a group musician. “[The experience was] very major. In being an observer, I learnt to fundamentally be responsible for my actions. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. He [Davis] said a direction. It all starts with himself. You had to have something you bring to the table whether they like you or not. You have to treat them with an idea.”

The Mahavishnu Orchestra was Cobham next big thing, founded by McLaughlin and featuring Cobham on the drums. Featuring fusion before the excesses of prog, The Mahavishnu Orchestra released two classic albums with Cobham, The Inner Mounting Flame and Birds of Fire. The line-up imploded, but that was to be expected given the talent working in it. It’s also something that Cobham looks back on with a lot of fondness. “Oh yeah, very positive moments. It was a band that functioned at the highest level of proficiency. It was able to control a high level of music that barely maintained by a group of artists.” Cobham’s legendary power and control was integral as funk, jazz and rock freely mixed


In 1973, he left the Mahavishnu Orchestra and formed Spectrum, releasing another classic album (also called Spectrum). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Cobham recorded as a bandleader, and as a drummer. His output was rather eclectic, and included a Grateful Dead side project, Bobby and the Midnites, a quartet called the Glass Menagerie, The Saturday Night Live band, and started working in that malleable “genre” of world music. He played in the 1992 WOMAD organised by Peter Gabriel and has subsequently recorded with musicians from all over the world (such as Norway, Germany, Brazil.) His touring is still relentless, and his creative output grows by the year.

After all this, you kinda wonder if he’s deserved a rest. “I don’t know if it was easy. I’m not able to relax. Even when playing music that people remember me for, it’s a new arrangement. I don’t feel uncomfortable playing something thirty-five, forty years old because it’s always different.” Within that time, he’s noticed a shift in the technology, but for him, more importantly, the key to being a good drummer hasn’t changed. “I think the instrument that makes up the drum has been refined, the heads, the cymbals. The drummer has to be more discriminative of what they want to make up their environment. Drumming has become a real artform, it’s not just putting your sticks on the heads, but it’s also knowing how. If you know how it’s done, the history, you’ll have a better presentation.”

Cobham has always been a real purveyor of music, and believes trying to know and hear as much as possible is key to not only understanding his talent, but also for anyone wanting to be a drummer. “It’s always been a requirement. When playing without an understanding, it’s like giving someone a Ferrari 540 Daytona, 5 gears, a classic car, you give the keys and say ‘have a spin’. You’re not meant to start it in first, but in 2nd. If you start it in 1st, you blow the engine. You only go as far as you know. It’s like that with drumming.” It’s also about avoiding some of the common pitfalls. “You know when to replace heads, you believe you’ve got the sounds you want, but then you wonder why it sounds like shoe boxes because you didn’t replace the heads.”

Cobham brings his explosive live show to New Zealand, the first time he’s ever been down here. “WOMAD is wonderful. Doubly wonderful though, is to come to New Zealand. I’ve never been to New Zealand before.” To him, you can tell that playing live is what he really lives for musically. “Every chance I get. It’s something that you should naturally do. Recording is an unnatural situation. Playing in a performance, you can’t ask for anything more than that.”