Author Description

Hudson Music is proud to be the publisher of COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham, the authorized musical biography covering the life and work of this jazz, fusion, and drumming legend. The beautifully designed 168-page book includes biography, musical notation, discography, and photos. When he burst onto the international stage in 1971 with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham had already recorded with Miles Davis and dozens of others. But it was his otherworldly playing with Mahavishnu that redefined what was possible on the drum set. Cobham’s first solo album, 1973’s Spectrum, became a number one hit, spawned three future jazz standards, and cemented his place as a drumming legend for all time. But Cobham was far from finished, and in a career that has now spanned seven decades, he is considered one of the titans of the instrument, someone whose work is essential study. With COBHAM: The Music and Drumming of Billy Cobham, the work and life of this drumming colossus is explored and analyzed. Written with Cobham’s direct involvement and culled from dozens of hours of interviews with him, the book presents a biography of his early years and the development of his career, and then documents select important recordings and projects from 1968 up to the present day. Cobham gives his views on the industry, writing music, leading a band, recording, education/clinics, and other topics. Presented in a coffee-table style full-color layout, an extensive collection of photos (many culled from Cobham’s personal archives) documents Billy’s history—including his contributions to the innovative setup of the instrument itself: left-hand-lead/ambidextrous playing, double bass drums, the contemporary large kit with instrument innovations such as the gong drum, and an endlessly creative approach to playing the drums in ways that continue to defy convention. The book includes many note-for-note transcriptions from throughout Cobham’s career, including tracks fro