BILLY COBHAM, STEVE KHAN, ALPHONSO JOHNSON, TOM SCOTT: ALIVEMUTHERFORYA

This album should be classified under live albums, but whatever. I was fortunate to see this tour at the Shady Grove in Maryland that had a revolving stage well before Yes came up with that. In fact, in 1971, I saw Yes on the Fragile tour on that same revolving stage! Gee, I wonder what inspired the "in the round" deal?

Anyway, this was a great show, I was all over the Wash DC area for the fusion acts that was everywhere back then. Jean Luc Ponty, George Duke, John McLaughlin, Weather Report, Lenny White among others were touring like crazy then. Billy was hot off of "Magic, his most critically acclaimed album since "Spectrum", Alphonso Johnson was just moving into his solo mode after leaving Weather Report, Steve Khan was just moving after workng with Larry Coryell and producing his first solo album "Tightrope". Tom Scott had already had a reputation from L.A. Express and later the "Blues Brothers". Keyboardist Mark Soskin was the real newcomer here straight out of the Berkley School of Music.

I'm not going to go over every track here because IMO the best tracks of this show are not here, so I'm going to go over missing/alternate tracks that a Columbia executive would have the decency and integrity to preserve and release and what memory I still have on this show! The best one of them all is the Cobham classic "Stratus". All three, Khan, Scott and Soskin and of course, Cobham just tear this jam apart to about at least 20 minutes long. Each one of them does a solo that just knocks you on your ass. Scott brings in the Starsky & Hutch theme he was famous for on this and a real kickass version of it, prog or not. This is really about one of the best fusion get-togethers at the time. The only REAL get-together recordings during this period was the 1977 Montreaux Summit festival recordings Columbia did but has yet to be released.