A FUNKY THIDE OF SINGS

Billy Cobham's FUNK-BRASS Album

Right from the start, Billy Cobham's jazz fusion take was mainly funk inflected, so it's no surprise that with time he would play even funkier stuff than before. Now Billy is accompanied with a whole set of brass players, among them there's the famous Becker Brothers on board, so the keyboards and guitar that were in his debut an important part of the music, now they're simply another part of the big picture.

The music is rather accessible, but not yet mainstream jazz funk as you would have thought. The brass players support the main melodies and various solos throughout, and the tempo throughout is rather rapid, unlike the more tranquil and jazzier Crosswinds.

The first five tunes are all excellent straight-forward jazz funk tunes with all the aspects I mentioned before. The sixth track however, entitled wrongly 'A Funky Kind of Thing', is a 9 minute drum performance, ultra-boring if you're not fond of complete drum show-off. The last track though, called 'Moody Modes', introducing itself with Milcho Leviev's elegant keyboards, is by all means the best composition in this album, lasting 12 minutes, the trumpet playing is simply gorgeous and how the composition develops, it's incredible, probably one of Cobham's greatest arrangements.

Despite the last grandiose composition, the album overall is simply good brass-led jazz funk that is fun and all, but not the most rewarding of Cobham releases neither of fusion in general, actually, any of Cobham's previous efforts are better than this and so is the following one, Life & Times.

3 stars: solid album, still not repeating ol' formulas, but yet not quite there as some of Billy's other works. Get this after you've listened to the four previous albums, including the live Shabazz. If you're fond of jazz funk though, I highly recommend you this, this still has bite and originality.

This album is very memorable for me personally as I was so impressed with how unique this album was at that time. Unique? Yes. What things that make this album unique? Only one thing: because it has a song which has a full-lenght drum solo "A Funky Kind of Thing". Why? By that time I was not aware if there was any song that contains only drumming while Billy Cobham offered something different than the others. You can guess, at that time I only played track no. 7 only from this album because I love solo drumming. Whenever I played the cassette (the only format I have at that time) I always blasted off my amplifier volume to get full enjoyment.

I knew Billy Cobham for the first time sometime in 1975 through his excellent debut album "Spectrum" because of the appearance of Tommy Bolin in that album. Tommy Bolin was suddenly a great name by that time because he was appointed as Ritchie Blackmore's replacement in Deep Purple's line up. In the same year, Deep Purple played a two-day concert in Jakarta. That was the first international rock concert for my country and it was phenomenal. Many of people whom later become my friends were there to see the concert. Unfortunately I could not afford to buy the ticket so I stayed at home. As Bolin was famous, I then bought the Billy Cobham "Spectrum".

I realize now that actually the whole album "A Funky Thide of Sings" is actually an excellent album after I play and enjoy every single track this album offers. In fact, the opening track "Panhandler" represents an excellent jazz-rock fusion music. Keith Jarret's "Sorcery" has been rearranged beautifully so it sounds really good. I like the brass section which involves many players here. "A Funky Thide Of Sings", "Thinking Of You", and also Randy Brecker's "Some Skunk Funk" plus the rest of the tracks are all good in terms of composition and performance. Billy's drumming style reminds me to the kind of combined styles between Steve Gadd and Bill Bruford.

Overall, this is a very good jazz-rock fusion music with a lot of nice brass section segments. Keep on proggin' ...!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

The first of a series of albums that Billy Cobham uses (with the inspiration of Bulgarian classically-oriented pianist/composer Milcho Leviev) to expose his commitment to seriously sophisticated musical composition.

1. "Panhandler" (3:50) a funk song that demands a lot of its players--especially the horn section, but these professionals are at the absolute highest echelon in music's talent pool. The song is okay but more fascinating to listen to the horn section. (9/10)

2. "Sorcery" (2:26) another great groove, this one a little less funky, on which Billy once again places rigorous demands on his horn players. I think I'm catching on to Billy's focus on this album: to show off his skills as an arranger. (9.125/10)

3. "A Funky Thide Of Sings" (3:40) a steady bass line with rich percussion contributions that sounds a lot like a blend of the DAVE SANBORN and KOOL AND THE GANG approaches to funk is complemented by a slightly less star-studded horn section. Sax player Larry Schneider is asked to lead throughout a lot of it. (8.75/10)

4. "Thinking Of You" (4:12) exploring the smoother, Disco-er side of jazz-rock fusion with a rotating crew of individuals stepping up to lead, including, synth player Milcho Leviev, trombonist Glenn Ferris, sax player Michael Brecker, trumpeter Randy Brecker, and guitarist John Scofield all getting a little time up front. (8.75/10)

5. "Some Skunk Funk" (5:07) a great song (attributed to trumpeter Randy Brecker), demanding tremendous skill to pull off, that once again lacks that special ingredient that makes one want to hum along: you want to dance, you want to study and marvel at the individual musicians, but there's nothing you'll be haunted by in the hours or days afterward. (9/10)

6. "Light At The End Of The Tunnel" (3:37) stealing the melodic rhythm track from Motown Temptation's "Can't Get Next to You" and then trying to make it different with interesting horn and lead guitar play over the top is like stealing a car and then spray painting it a different color. The solo voce drum play at the very end is the highlight for me. (8.875/10)

7. "A Funky Kind Of Thing" (9:24) solo drum play over the entire ten minutes! It always amazes me how Billy Cobham can create mood and funk with only himself and a drum set (and an engineering console). I can not think of many drummers who have this talent. (17.5/20)

8. "Moody Modes" (12:16) cymbals, electric piano, electric bass, and synths open up to create a nice dreamy "late night" motif--which is joined (bubbly slightly burst) at the 90-second mark by the horns. Piano takes over in the middle of the third minute. The pianist. Milcho Leviev is, you might recall, an incredibly talented pianist, composer, and band leader with quite a pedigree and c.v. back in Bulgaria before Don Ellis lured him across the pond to co-lead his orchestra from 1970-75. Though Ellis was quite the promoter, molder, and mentor to young and foreign talent, Don's relationship with Milcho was prompted by his tremendous respect and admiration for the Bulgarian music traditions and compositional (and piano) prowess he exuded. Billy began associating with Milcho in 1971 with the artist appearing on Billy's albums Total Eclipse (1974), this one, and Shabazz, a live album which would appear later in the same year as this one. Overall this long song plays out more like a soundtrack or classically-tinged suite than anything resembling anything else on Side One of this album. A marvellous song, though still lacking in melodic hooks and definitely lacking in infectious grooves. This one is for the intellectual music lover. (23.5/25)

Total time 44:32

A collection of demanding, sophisticated songs that all take considerable skill to perform but which somehow lack that special something that makes for a catchy earworm--a song that you want to push "repeat" for. Again, it feels obvious to me that Billy's focus on this album was most surely the task of proving he could write and arrange uber- sophisticated songs and then get the right team of musicians that he could then motivate to top-notch performances.

A-/4.5 stars; even though this isn't a favorite album--does not contain enough whistle-and-dancd along songs for my tastes--it is an album I have to rate up for the astounding skill level of the musical collaborators.