Any serious musician will appreciate genius when they see it. Billy was an inspiration to so many guys, not only drummers. His work today is still magic, he's a nice guy who has time for other players who in a million years will never play to his standard. A great ambassador to the drumming world. Thanks for posting this, the last solo must rank as one of the greatest pieces of work recorded live!

I had this album and listened to it daily for years....love this stuff...keyboardist is sick. Billy, Billy, Billy...The Greatest

My favorite drummer of all time! My Idol.....thank you Tom for posting this clip .

Seen him in 1979 i was 15 years old,still listen to him now it was at the rainbow theatre open handed playing seemed strange large gong behind him great experience seems like yesterday.To me the best and will always be the best,and I have listened to them all.

This is flat thunderous, intense!!! Smokin!!!!!

Ah, back in the days when there were no limits on how exciting and adventurous the music could be....

..it's been almost 40 years since I first heard this. I NEVER thought I'd see the day that someone came along and released/posted the actual video. I'm sitting here stunned O.o Thank you for this :)

I saw Billy the same year, 1974 at the Sunshine Inn, in Asbury Park NJ. Just mind blowing.

I was there, 3 rows from the front just left of Billy almost in line with the brass section. Got my ticket on the night as a return. Couldn't believe what amazing musicians I was witnessing that night. Was happy for days after!

@petermcintyre100

9 жыл бұрын

Yes, I was fortunate that evening. I was just 19 too, which influences me to mention, along with seeing Cobham and Co, what great times they were back then! :-/

@masmas6463

9 жыл бұрын

peter mcintyre I was born in 76 but thankfully picked up on this music at the age of 9 so I lived through the last of the golden era of jazz and fusion as today it just does not exist, to think you saw Cobham and the brecker bros not bad at all !

@masmas6463

9 жыл бұрын

peter mcintyre brass section... I think it was called the horn section lol thinking of horn section if you know this music well you would know the jerry hey / seawind horns very well...

@petermcintyreA1

9 жыл бұрын

maurizio sabatini I got carried away, yes, you're correct: horn section it was!

@blakearmstrong4994

4 жыл бұрын

Gosh you gentleman are killing me! I was born in 1987 and would of absolutely loved to of been a part of this. BC is the man!

EXCELLENT!! This is the video of the album I've had SINCE '74 Thank you!!!!

Billy's Tom Rolls were a beast. Lifting weights gives the edge on the forearm. The snap and slap dynamically gave Bill his signature sound along with leading off on the snare with a paradiddle

Best way I can describe this is thick soup, tasty and with and an amazing texture

Got free tickets to see Billy at Ronnie Scotts a couple of years ago. Over 70 now but...oh my goodness ...SO sharp still!!...Absolutely jaw dropping. My son who was only 15 at the time and a piano player was with me on the night (managed to sneak him in) We still talk about it today!

Anyone else here first hear Billy (and Mahavishnu) on the Mar y Sol Festival album from 1972? The band had just one song on the album -- a heavily edited version of 'Noonward Race'. The unedited version came out several decades later on the Best of Mahavishnu Orchestra CD. I was 14 when it came out and I bought it because it had other acts from the festival on it that I liked such as The Allman Brothers, J. Geils Band, B.B. King, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Cactus. I had never heard the Mahavishnu Orchestra, so when I heard 'Noonward Race' exploding out of my speakers it became a musical epiphany for me as a young drummer. That record, that band, and particularly Billy Cobham's playing on it, made me begin to explore jazz for the first time, and it's been a love affair ever since.

What a deadly kit...love the whole kit.

Had this album(Shabazz) as a kid in the 70s and listened to it constantly growing up.So here we are 37 years later and I happened to click on this and watch video,which I had no idea existed, from the SAME EXACT performance from which the album was recorded .Cool to see all the edits made.Thanks for posting this! Awesome!

I love the look Billy gets when he's in the zone. I've seen Dennis Chambers get the same look, and I know the feeling =3

I had the great pleasure of watching Milcho play acoustic piano with a Mike Lendt on upright and another Mike on drums for two nights at an intimate jazz club here in Edmonton about 20 years ago (called himself Mike Leviev to fit in) and the even greater pleasure of sitting and drinking with him between sets. We became pretty good friends. Massively underrated player. Funny story: When I told him how much I loved this album, he didn't know what I was talking about. I said, "You know, freaking Shabbazz, crazy Brecker sounding like a flock of angry geese, total insanity on stage...". "Oh, yeah. That's right. We used to joke that we were like a Dixieland band. Everyone was soloing at once!" Which, I realized, was actually a pretty good description. Great guy. #electricdixieland

I'm going to see Randy Brecker tomorrow night(10/15/15) at Ryles in Cambridge MA. He is playing with Greg Hopkins (Buddy Rich). This was an epic album, that I have been listening to for 40 years.

Oh, Milcho Leview is really really good!

Its so great to see these amazing bands that were obviously influenced by what Miles was doing. This kind of music should really have its own genre since theres nothing else like it. Call it Anything as Miles would say

Brilliant to see the video footage. Must have been 14 when i heard this and in disbelieve one man only played the drums ;-) He took drumming to the next level!

Thanks a lot for sharing it. I saw the Band 1974 in Paris.

I could watch/listen to Billy play All Day and All Night! The Best!

BTW - the improvisation within the structure and form of this piece (Shabazz) is amazing! Billy played my drums once and I got to hold a brief albeit enriching conversation with The Man......BC is a great drummer and true gentleman. What class!!!

@godbluffvdgg

4 жыл бұрын

Some people have all the luck...:)...Great story...

best drum tone and feel in the business

Billy is so damn fast but at the same time tasteful.

My first concert was when Billy was with John and company during Birds of Fire. It set my jazz soul a blaze.....I was 14.

@jerryvivanco4898

3 жыл бұрын

I saw that original lineup in November '73........ Long Beach Arena, Long Beach CA. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Billy's still the best after all these years. Thanks for inspiring me as a tean way back then!!!

The king !

@mauriziocascella6573

10 жыл бұрын

y ;)

Wow thank you, many thanks for posting,,,, ;)

Oh my God, what a master monster. Speechless.

Billy started and created a style that can never be matched a true maverick. I saw him with the George duke project in 1976 sat right behind him and was at awe. Thanks you billy for sharing your God gifted talent. You da Man!

Holy geez, man. I wore this album out in the 70's 10:05 to 11:20 just friggin' kills it. Milcho was right there with BC. Awesome.

@mediumstudio

6 жыл бұрын

dude - its absolutely insane

Every drummer should own Shabazz - BC's versatility and ability to swing odd time signatures is amazing!

Greatest drummer

WOW!! I bought this album when it came out, played it to DEATH...........What a thrill to see this performance!!!! Thanks for posting!!!! Billy is still great, but I'm fond of the stuff from the early 70s!!

@magn8195

3 жыл бұрын

Did you learn these songs on drums? How did you begin practising them?

excellent!!

Une sacrée époque ! j'avais vu ce groupe à l'Olympia à Paris....Billy mon idole !

What a legend

amazing

The Shabazz Concert Live! Billy Cobham is at the top of the fusion world in 1974-Crosswinds & Total Eclipse Lp`s released that year. Incredible performance! Check out Randy Brecker playing trumpet through a Wah-wah Pedal. Many Thanks from another Fusion Freak!

Simon Phillips says he attended this show, and that's when he wanted to learn to play open-handed.

@crieverytim

Жыл бұрын

Just watched his brand new drumeo video about this. good stuff

Billy reminds me of Boddy Rich power drumming - Billy was the drummer king in the 70 JazzFunk period

@michaelware1649

4 жыл бұрын

I remember when Buddy was dethroned by BC in the downbeat readers poll for the first time in over 20 yrs when the first MO album came out. Buddy was obviously a great drummer, but I don't think it's physically possible to be as great as he thought he was. He was an arrogant prick, as determined by watching him on the Tonight show, and talking to actual members of his touring band.Go, Billy!

@magn8195

3 жыл бұрын

@@michaelware1649 Who dethroned Buddy before Billy?

@michaelware1649

3 жыл бұрын

@@magn8195 No one, that was my point. Buddy won Downbeat magazine's top drummer award for years straight when I was growing up, and was generally considered to be the the top dog of the drumming world. Then Inner Mounting Flame came out, and suddenly, Billy C was the man to beat. Not only an outstanding drummer, but composer, as well.

@magn8195

3 жыл бұрын

@@michaelware1649 Wow. That's crazy! Thanks for the insight Michael! Do you know which drummer 'dethroned' or could 'dethrone' Billy?

@michaelware1649

3 жыл бұрын

@@magn8195 I don't really follow such things the way I used to, but a couple that I really like are Stewart Copeland, who can do more with a bass drum, snare, and hi hat than other guys can do with a 15 piece set, and Dennis Chambers, a monster more in the BC style.

Put this in the jazz--rock time capsule........great audio + video!!

Billy Cobham, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones etc. They are giants of their instruments ... Thank you to exist ...

MAZING

Amazing energetic Drummer along with unbelievable Jazzrock jam

Tom, I love that fro man! Take me back to the seventies!

love this wow bc.... i keep this cd in my car all the time its great to see this!!!!!!

Thanks for the video D... great material! Bob

Absolutely incredible, i wish i can get married with this vid

perfect music from the golden age............. thanks for posting

Game over with the first part of the tune. The hihat/cowbell pattern...

All these guys Cobham rich gadd Electra etc ect... Tony Anthony Williams is for many of us drummers by far easily the most imaginative the most difficult to imitate or demonstrate I could go on but you get the message but God bless them all.☺🤗😑

This is the video of the live album "Shabazz" which also has only 2 songs, one per side (I still have it) I also overplayed the shit out of it. Randy Brecker's crazy wah-wah trumpet, I thought it was the coolest thing I've ever heard and now actually seing the concert I agree with myself :) Milcho Leviev was also a total monster .... congratulations to those who saw the man live. I saw the "Magic" tour at a little club, "the golden bear" in Long Beach, CA, practically walking distance from where I lived at the time and close enough to touch him, and saw him with The Mahavishnu Orchestra, same town at the Long Beach Arena, next to the edge of the stage for the whole thing ! ... By the way, the horns with wah-wah trip was started by Frank Zappa: Ian Underwood on sax in the original version of "Chunga's Revenge" and a Latino brother trumpetist named Sal Marquez in "The Grand Wazoo" :)

@TheUprightMonkey

8 жыл бұрын

+Victor Coral I had the great pleasure of watching Milcho play acoustic piano with a Mike Lendt on upright and another Mike on drums on two nights at an intimate jazz club here in Edmonton about 20 years ago (called himself Mike Leviev to fit in) and the even greater pleasure of having siting and having a drink with him between each set. We became pretty good friends. Massively underrated player. Funny story: When I told him how much I loved this album, he didn't know what I was talking about. I said, "You know, freaking Shabbazz, crazy Brecker sounding like a flock of angry geese, total insanity on stage...". "Oh, yeah. That's right. We used to joke and say we were playing Dixieland. Everyone was soloing at once!" Which, I realized, was actually a pretty good description. Great guy.

@victorcoral

8 жыл бұрын

+Mark Kandborg The real great ones are usually so humble and a pleasure to talk to, thanx for the anecdote :)

@freetofu

6 жыл бұрын

Actually 4 songs, 2 per side... but anyway it's amazing to see this video after listening to that album for decades.

@Bonedalas

5 жыл бұрын

I'm surprised, my copy has 4 songs on it...

@funkasiandude

Жыл бұрын

surprisingly this shabazz live footage seems longer than the album one (exclude intro of this video ofc)

Best drummer

Respect

Never realized how much of an influence he was on Simon P. until seeing this.. Amazing drumming...

I was talking with a jazz man one day who had played with a lot of big names, and he talked about each one at length, I happened to ask about Billy Cobham and the guy looked and me and simply said "Billy Cobham was a scary individual" he never elaborated beyond that but for some reason I got the feeling what he was saying was entirely accurate...

Now, THIS is what fusion looks like...:)...Nobody did it better...Return to Forever were just as great...

Love this! Thanks for sharing

ralph hale your right this is a very cool recording many people don't get it glad you did and do horns mean something obviously William thought so too .I had the album parts of spectrum are missing ..........all in all it's a gem....

back when Fusion was incredible.

@jerryvivanco4898

3 жыл бұрын

And "Credible"!!!!

this was right after his stint w/ Mahavishnu, where he really stood out....

I can't believe the Rainbow has people rolling around speaking in tongues in it now.

thunder, powerful, fast, groove master...I know there are/were many virtuosos genius; (Rich, vinnie, weckl, tony, bruford, etc, etc ) etc but for me Billy is my all time fav...

awesome fury...

Dang! Ol' BC's got more talent in the dust in his trousers turn-ups than the rest of the other tub-thumpers put together, and make no mistake!

Shabazz days

what a drummer !!!!!!

Yeah!

saw this bunch open for the Doobie Bros in Knoxville TN

I saw this same band that year - but with conga player Lee Pastora - play in Cambridge, Mass. in some kind of a church building.

@ 27:16 tuning whilst construction the solo!! Whah!

DID I DREAM he had a lit up drum kit on whistle test, the reason I went out and bought an album at the time..strartus still does it for me..but did he EVER have his drums individually lit too....

El más grande!!!!!!

He is not just about soloing into the blue. He tells storys

absolutely mind blowing.Have Shabazz LP, wore the drum solo out on Tenth Pin,so got cd.Cobham`s drums on this sound superb;still don`t know what make they are. (Fibes?)

Absolute, unbridled virtuosity

Awesome band...Hippie Crumbs w/ a 'Fro and a Gibson SG, Alex Blake n Glen Farris,great, Randy (in full '70s Brooklyn pimp regalia) & Mike just before the inception of The Brecker Brothers, Milcho Leviev, Bulgarian keys virtuoso and Billy C, forefather of Prog Metal drumming..priceless

Billy still plays with the same unique flavour …..

this is the real deal

Some have told me that Billy had no technique. Well, I can see here how he dogs out that technique by sheer raw force arriving at that perfect form through ecstatic volition. This man's playing is an offering to the planet.

@rosswilliamson1732

5 ай бұрын

Then you shouldn’t consort with the clinically insane, should you? Billy has technique to burn and a creative imagination which made him the trailblazing influence for most of the most influential drummers who followed him.

@marcossawosky5619

5 ай бұрын

@@rosswilliamson1732 They were not insane. These fights I had in the mid-70s and I was still in HS. They were older and in college and listened to ECM, Jack DeJohnette, and Steve Gadd. I would show them a new album of Billy and George Duke and they would grab the sleeve and mockingly make it jump in an idiotic way because they hated funk & disco. So that's why I doubt they were crazy, just elitist and maybe racist. I didn't hang with them that long it was just a situational meeting for music exchange. Billy is just an undescribable sensation I get when listening to him play with the MO, a force of nature. A real touchstone in modern music. I remember Bruford saying "I got to stop listening to Cobham or else I will start sounding like him"

@rosswilliamson1732

5 ай бұрын

@@marcossawosky5619 yes there are also the Buddy bigots to whom I say, Billy could more than competently do what Buddy did and then a huge amount more. Billy’s flexibility, imagination and many incredible collaborations are why he is the drummers drummer…from Bozio to Peart and many in between Billy is the guy who influenced and excited them most. And yet he is the most humble, grounded man with a planet sized talent.

Billy is not only a great play but a serious writer of music as well. The core of this group is from Dreams; the group these guys started from Berklee College in Boston of course.

Tom nice to see your Hendrix perm.

It's Hard to Believe how much Simon Phillips Copied Billy. even the way Billy moves. Amazing.

@troywilson747

8 жыл бұрын

+Richie Geno good influence...

@anthonym612

8 жыл бұрын

Wow...now that you mention it, his movements DO remind me of watch Simon Philips.

@Neverokful

8 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure I would use the word "copy" but definitely a heavy influence on his style, along with Gary Husband as well who both incidentally, play open handed.

@RichieGeno88

8 жыл бұрын

Heavy Influence = "Copied. Gary Husband Doesn't Play like Simon Or Billy.

@Neverokful

8 жыл бұрын

If you say so mate but to my ears, Gary is definitely influenced by Billy Cobham, just listen to his playing.

This was in Billy's CTI sessions phase; perhaps the best he's ever sounded? As for the lineup? Don't even get me started; I would wager that Peter McIntyre has never received such good value for money :-)

Bought this second-hand in the 80s for £1.50 - bargain! Never thought I'd see it! Interesting to hear the excised bit from 10:58 to 12:53 - I think Ken Scott was right to cut it for the album. I'm missing the guy who shouts "Yeah!" at the very end though.

Long Live Jazz Fusion!!🥁🎷🎺🎸🎹

Thank you for this video! It should be against the law to play drums with such precision and speed.

John Abercrombie. If I'm not mistaken, somewhere on Steve Khan's website, there's picture of him w/ Scofield, Steve Khan, and Bill Connors, from an article/interview they all did for some guitar magazine in the mid 1980s. Abercrombie is referred to as 'Crumbs' - Many Jazz Cats have one word, monikers/nicknames: Past=Bird, Dizz, Pops, Miles, Monk, Bud,'Trane, Sonny; and present : Pat, Sco, Stern, Frizz, Lieb, Chick, Herbie. I guess Abercrombie's is 'Crumbs', at least for close friends.

I was there

I sat behind Jeff Beck at this gig

👏🏾👏🏾

It's hard to hear Abercrombie in all this.....amazing stuff throughout....

TRUTH

I just wanted to say that I'm disappointed that Randy Brecker plays exactly the same solo than on the album. Then I realized that it's a live album... (Probably I listened a bit too often to it when I remember the solo after 40 years... O_o) I hope this is the concert where the album was recorded...

@nicocilli2657

5 жыл бұрын

yes this is the album

This is so amazing. Do you any more video from this time? or any other of this band

WTF THE GODS!!