Billy Cobham Clinic

Managed to get into the "secret" drum clinic at the Acadamy of Contemporary Music as one of my guitarist friends goes there.

i had seen billy twice before but still enjoy his playing and listening to him preech.

he was playing a four piece kit with only a few cymbals and began with a drum solo lasting bout 15 mins......demonstrating his usual stuff. very clean.

he talked a lot about the people he's played with and the stuff he's done.....some random facts and things that he said from the clinic:

1) he said his spectrum album cost $22,000 to make and only took a couple of weeks....compared to 8 months to make steely dan's "Aja". he said he had NO idea it would sell so well....the only reason he did it was for self satisfaction and to give a few copies to family!!

2) he is very upset about the new miles davis release from Columbia records. the release is of the entire recording sessions from ( i forget the name of the record) and includes all the mistakes. he said the record companies are just after $$$'s.

3) when asked who one of his fav drummers was he immediately said dennis chambers because hes a "chameleon". he said "dennis can play with carlos santana and then with mike stern. carlos has a wonderful tone and no chops, while mike has too man chops and awful tone....but i'd take mike anyday!"

very interesting........

Well, that IS interesting.

I know he likes Dennis but
who doesn't?

I thnk that he's very im-
pressed, as I am, at the
fact that Dennis doesn't
read BUT interprets music
VERY well, probably better
than anyone, under the same
circumstances. I still think
of the TOKYO LIVE stuff as
the top of the heap.

At the same time, I think
there are other chameleons
out there. Vinnie is the
most versatile player, I
think but he's a great read-
er and I think that's what
Billy is leaning on.


I know he's not happy with
the record companies. Again,
who is? $$$$$.

On the Santana/Stern - hmmm.

I love BOTH those guys!

[img]cool.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 10, 2003 04:16 PM: Message edited by: peter c ]</font>

Isn't the new release Jack Johnson? I sorta liked Billy's playing on that, he had some interesting things goin on.

That's it, I think.

[img]cool.gif[/img]

I think DC is a natural extension somewhat of BC ["DC-BC"; kinda like "AC-DC" [img]wink.gif[/img] ]...except that he's taken it to another dimension...Scofe's Live Japan, AWA Blue Matter & Loud Jazz was some SCARY-fun sh**....

By TOKYO LIVE, peterc, you mean the McLaughlin, DeFranceso, Chambers 'Free Spirits' gig, right? That's my favorite Dennis record, with The Heart of Things LIVE IN PARIS in second place featuring Chambers' seven minute drum solo during the tune 'Tony.' Nice tribute to Mssr. Williams.

I though "Aja" actually took longer to make, but maybe that was "Gaucho". I remember reading stories of Becker/Fagan recording horns, then scrapping them, futzing around with different musicians/recording styles, etc... for A YEAR, and then going back and using the orignal horn tracks before release.

That's the one, 5/8.

Dennis made his mark
with me, on that. I
dropped to my knees.
I LOVE Joey D! He is
the top on that!

"The Heart of Things"
was great too.

[img]cool.gif[/img]

Aarrgghh...
I don't have either the Free Spirits or Heart of Things LIVE PARIS [img]frown.gif[/img] [img]confused.gif[/img] - hard to find locally...I've ordered a coupla things from AudiophileImports, but they take SOOOO LOOONNG to ship/arrive [img]frown.gif[/img]

Yeah, Joey DeF is righteous. For about 20 seconds during one song he starts playing eerie Hammond B3 like Larry Young and then McLaughlin and Chambers put their McLaughlin and Williams Lifetime hats on and join in the fun. No matter where I'm at or what kind of mood I'm in it totally gets me off. I'm glad I'm familiar enough with Lifetime to pick up on that. I deplore the term 'ear candy' but it's applicable in this case.

I'm listening to "Miles Beyond"...

That is pillage!

[img]cool.gif[/img]

thats it....."Jack Johnson". Billy said, they are using all the stuff that miles and the producer put aside due to there being mistakes in them......stuff they werent happy with. he was just a little pissed at that.

as for dennis.....the tokyo cd is prob the only major one of him that i dont have.....was on the verge of buying it in Virgin Megastore.....3000 miles away in times square, NY.....but ran out of cash!!! have yet to find that cd since..... [img]frown.gif[/img]

Miles Beyond? The Mahavishnu version or Doves of Fire? Both will melt your stereo. [img]cool.gif[/img]

MO but I will check out
what "Simon Says" about it
too soon enough!

[img]wink.gif[/img]

Quote:

---

Originally posted by palmerlouie:

as for dennis.....the tokyo cd is prob the only major one of him that i dont have

i have yet to find that cd since..... [img]frown.gif[/img]

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">amazon uk louie.

Anyone know what crisp as toast snare Cobham used on the Mahavishnu albums? Fibes?

For some great "DC" check out John Schofield's "Pick Hits Live" CD. Some really great stuff, with Gary Grainger on Bass.

Take Care. F.S.

"carlos has a wonderful tone and no chops, while mike has too man chops and awful tone"

SO TRUE! I can't listen to Stern. It kills me. Carlos sounds the same to me, but I love the tone.

I dug the way you made this original post. I enjoy hearing about "in the moment" reflections at clinics--the more the better! I hope to share the same after seeing Greg B this Thursday.

As for the Spectrum/ Aja comparrison, what's up with that? Why would BC even go there? I don't think these recordings are even in the same "spectrum"--Fagen and Becker sure aren't fretting about how much time they spent in the studio to get it right. The record sales and lasting power of the project speaks for itself.

As FUSE said, I see the BC/DC connection. Haven't thought too much about it before. But BC seems to not mention VC. There is no other drummer, save Gadd, that has crossed so much musical ground. Cats like BC are life TWilliams was...edgy, very opinionated, and confident (almost arrogant) personalities. They are critical and hand out few compliments, but surely BC respects and digs VC's portfolio of work...right?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BennyAndTheSkins:
I though "Aja" actually took longer to make, but maybe that was "Gaucho". I remember reading stories of Becker/Fagan recording horns, then scrapping them, futzing around with different musicians/recording styles, etc... for A YEAR, and then going back and using the orignal horn tracks before release.

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just one quick question that was bugging me for some time: When an english speaking person refers to "horns", what does he mean ? Because we have instruments in germany called "horn", but i doubt that it has the same meaning as the english "horns". Is this perhaps a term refering to all brass instruments like trumpet, trombone, etc ?

No, breasts.

Horns (or horn section) means brass as in trumpets and saxophones, JanL, to Americans anyway. Also a bull or a goat has horns, same word (though not a musical instrument.)

Big breasts are known as a rack in American slang and that's what our good friend, benrand, I think has mistaken for horns. [img]smile.gif[/img] But it's been a long time since I've been to Michigan and their slang may differ. [img]wink.gif[/img]

Yeah, in America, horns refers to trumpet, sax, and trombone, usually.

Breasts are refered to as "cans", as are drums sometimes. You can bang on the cans, or say "Nice cans, baby!"

Learn English the easy, fun HOD way! [img]wink.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img] [img]cool.gif[/img] [img]rolleyes.gif[/img]

"No, breasts." hilarious

I always thought 'horn' was a giant hormonal, forehead zit. I learn so much on this board. [img]eek.gif[/img]

English is a funny language, JanL, full of many contradictions. American English and British English are not 100% the same. In American English 420 doesn't always mean a number; bad sometimes means good; and fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing.

There ARE two words in English that mean the same thing all over the world: Vinnie Colaiuta.

English is one of the hardest, if not THE hardest languages to learn(it's being added to constantly not to mention word usage and pronunciation as discussed before) next to Mandarin Chinese and Russian. I think it's pretty outstanding that even though sometimes there may a language barrier, the language of music can always be understood and communicated between like minds. By the way, Vinnie is the BADDEST in the BEST since of the word.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. It thought english wasn't too hard, at least the grammar and that stuff. The difficult thing is that the english language has a lot of words (and i heard that about three new ones are created every day (?)).

In America you can wake up with an aching joint that'll put your nose out of joint, eat breakfast in a greasy little joint, have a joint meeting at work, lunch at a topless joint, supper at a swanky joint and go the joint for having a joint.

Solly, Cholly, back on point: I ask again does anyone know what snare Cobham used with Mahavishnu?

[img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img]

Sounds like dere's a joint venture in da woiks, 5... [PS...the "2" words"...VC...hardeehar]

...[& if ya listen to too much Tower of Power with your girl in da room, it'll make ya horn-y]

...right now I need to get on the horn [phone]...[can I, benny?]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 12, 2003 01:58 PM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

You the man, p.c.

Fuse, is your PM in HOD on the fritz? Now THAT's a good German-American word.

Whutz da mame of dis thread ag'in?

It was the Fibes synthetic-snare.

www.thediametrixletter.com/mo.mp3

There are VERY FEW TODAY that
even approach the attack of Billy
back then! People either have just
forgotten because of amnesia or
they are in denial, proving once
again that DE-NILE ain't just a
river in Egypt!

[img]cool.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 12, 2003 05:11 PM: Message edited by: peter c ]</font>

5-8,

I'm going to try and find
out for you.

[img]cool.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 12, 2003 12:23 PM: Message edited by: peter c ]</font>