Billy Cobham – a genuine living legend of both jazz and jazz rock – has been talking about his long career, including his experiences playing with Miles Davis, Mahuvishnu Orchestra and more.
Ahead of his appearance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this weekend, the drummer - who turns 80 in a couple of weeks - has given an extensive interview to the Guardian. He cited as a turning point in his career when Davis recruited him for the recording of the Jack Johnson soundtrack in 1970.
“We’re in the studio and Miles is in the control room and John McLaughlin starts messing around on his guitar and I come in then – whomp! – bassist Michael Henderson hits us with this heavy groove. Miles rushes out of the control room and admonishes us in that gravelly voice of his: ‘I told you not to play between takes!’”
He continued: “But John just can’t stop. And so we’re at it again, and then Miles runs into the studio with his horn and shouts ‘hit the record button,’ and we were recording. We wrapped that album up by midday. Said everything that needed to be said. Sometimes making music is like that.”
Davis didn’t say much as a band leader, he recalls. “But what I did learn from him was to listen to what everyone is playing and adapt. Once we were playing My Funny Valentine and Herbie Hancock played a wrong chord, but Miles liked it and took the music that way. Jazz isn’t about perfection.”
Cobham and McLaughlin later formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which blazed a trail for jazz rock in the 1970s. As a drummer he’s been sampled thousands of times over the decades. “I love it that people want to sample my music, to put their own touch, their own twist, on it,” he said. “If I can pass you the groove then I’m happy to do so, because it’s not just mine, it’s everybody’s.”
Even at 80, Cobham is very much a working musician - after Cheltenham, he’ll be playing as part of the Guy Barker Big Band at Ronnie Scott’s in June – and still seems up for collaborating this late in his career: “I like to keep things fresh and work with new people.”
Not every one works out though. “I recently approached Bruno Mars’ drummer as I think he’s doing some really interesting things. He’s not got back to me; so be it. I can see he might think I’m a bit far out.”
