KEN SCOTT - From Beatles to Jazz-Rock Fusion (Part One)
Mahavishnu Orchestra & Billy Cobham
Interview by George Cole
When most people interview Ken Scott they want to talk about the B-word – the Beatles or Bowie, two of the many artists he has worked with. But we were more interested in discussing the F-word – fusion. Ken has played a significant part in the history of jazz-rock fusion, aka jazz-fusion, aka fusion. He is the only person to have worked in the studio with both the original and second line-ups of the Mahavishnu Orchestra; he engineered Billy Cobham’s ground breaking album Spectrum; co-produced Stanley Clarke’s seminal album School Days, and co-produced There & Back, the final album in Jeff Beck’s trilogy of jazz-rock releases.
Not bad for an Englishman who was born in London in 1947, and whose career had up until then, involved pop and rock artists such as, The Beatles (Ken calls Studio Number 2, Abbey Road, where The Beatles did most of their work, the Sistine Chapel of popular music) , David Bowie, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Procol Harum, The Rolling Stones and The New Seekers (their single, 'I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing', was better known as the Coca-Cola advert song).
When Ken was given a radio at the age of 12, it sparked a lifelong interest in electronics and recording. In 1963, aged 16, he wrote to a number of studios around London looking for work, and three days later, landed at job at EMI Studios in North London (now better known as Abbey Road Studios). From there, he worked his way up from the tape library to assistant engineer to engineer. As well working with Beatles’ producer George Martin, and being involved in many the band’s sessions (he recorded much of the 1968 album, The Beatles, better known as the White Album), Ken was also fortunate to learn his craft from EMI engineers such as Norman Smith, Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick, who developed new and innovative recording techniques, many of which are still being used in studios today.
In 1969, Ken moved to Trident Studios in Soho, London. It was another fortuitous move, because Trident was at the cutting edge of recording technology, being the first UK studio to use Dolby noise reduction and eight-track recording. At Trident, Ken worked with artists such as David Bowie and Elton John, and also moved into production. And it was at Trident that he first got involved in jazz-fusion.
When most people interview Ken Scott they want to talk about the B-word – the Beatles or Bowie, two of the many artists he has worked with. But we were more interested in discussing the F-word – fusion. Ken has played a significant part in the history of jazz-rock fusion, aka jazz-fusion, aka fusion. He is the only person to have worked in the studio with both the original and second line-ups of the Mahavishnu Orchestra; he engineered Billy Cobham’s ground breaking album Spectrum; co-produced Stanley Clarke’s seminal album School Days, and co-produced There & Back, the final album in Jeff Beck’s trilogy of jazz-rock releases.
Not bad for an Englishman who was born in London in 1947, and whose career had up until then, involved pop and rock artists such as, The Beatles (Ken calls Studio Number 2, Abbey Road, where The Beatles did most of their work, the Sistine Chapel of popular music) , David Bowie, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, Elton John, Procol Harum, The Rolling Stones and The New Seekers (their single, 'I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing', was better known as the Coca-Cola advert song).
When Ken was given a radio at the age of 12, it sparked a lifelong interest in electronics and recording. In 1963, aged 16, he wrote to a number of studios around London looking for work, and three days later, landed at job at EMI Studios in North London (now better known as Abbey Road Studios). From there, he worked his way up from the tape library to assistant engineer to engineer. As well working with Beatles’ producer George Martin, and being involved in many the band’s sessions (he recorded much of the 1968 album, The Beatles, better known as the White Album), Ken was also fortunate to learn his craft from EMI engineers such as Norman Smith, Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick, who developed new and innovative recording techniques, many of which are still being used in studios today.
In 1969, Ken moved to Trident Studios in Soho, London. It was another fortuitous move, because Trident was at the cutting edge of recording technology, being the first UK studio to use Dolby noise reduction and eight-track recording. At Trident, Ken worked with artists such as David Bowie and Elton John, and also moved into production. And it was at Trident that he first got involved in jazz-fusion.
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Miles Davis didn’t invent jazz-fusion, but he undoubtedly influenced its development. Many people think that his 1970 album Bitches Brew was a milestone in jazz-fusion, but it could be argued that an album Miles released a year earlier had a much greater impact on this genre. In A Silent Way saw Miles shifting his musical direction, with a greater use of electric guitar and electric keyboards. But what makes this album particularly special is that almost every musician involved in the sessions would go onto form influential jazz-fusion bands.
Miles used three keyboardists: Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea; electric guitarist John McLaughlin; saxophonist Wayne Shorter; bassist Dave Holland and drummer Tony Williams. Herbie Hancock formed Headhunters; Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, Weather Report, and Chick Corea, Return to Forever. Tony Williams formed Lifetime, and John McLaughlin founded the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
The first incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra comprised of John McLaughlin on guitar; Jan Hammer, keyboards; Billy Cobham, drums; Jerry Goodman, electric violin and Rick Laird, bass. The band had a power and an energy that blew audiences away – the band didn’t just blow the cobwebs out of your ears; they blew your ears off. The music was loud, intense and intoxicating, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra was soon a musical phenomenon that would influence countless rock and jazz musicians.
The band’s first album, The Inner Mounting Flame, released in 1971 by CBS Records, also made great waves, although ironically, not with Ken - at least not on initial hearing. “I was in France at the Château d'Hérouville studio working with Elton John and [producer] Gus Dudgeon,” he recalls, “when Elton and Gus were raving about this album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. We were listening to the record over dinner and there was a large group around the table talking and eating, so I just heard snippets of it. I wasn’t impressed – I thought: ‘what crap is this?’”
Later on, Ken was back in London working at Trident, “I was mixing an album and I got a call from CBS telling me that the Mahavishnu Orchestra were coming into town to do a BBC TV show and were interested in working with me on the next album. It was purely because Gus and Elton had raved about them that I thought, ‘There’s got to be something there’, so they sent me a copy of the album. I listened to it and it blew my mind – the energy, just everything about it. That energy continued all the way through, it almost became too dangerous for them.”
The move from pop to fusion was well-timed, adds Ken, “Working across the different genres has been perfect for my brain, because I get bored. I cannot be one of those people who make the same record time and time again. It has been a curse and saving grace for me. The curse is that the A&R guy [artists and repertoire, who are responsible for finding and nurturing talent] would like to pigeon-hole producers – if you have a successful heavy metal album, they will throw all sorts of heavy metal at you, but I was all over the place, so never on the top ten list for anything. I just wanted to jump around.”
When Ken is asked whether he was influenced by Miles’ Bitches Brew album, he laughs, “No – I don’t think I’ve even heard it! I remember doing a session at Electric Lady [studios in New York] with Bill [Cobham], and Mick Jagger and Keith [Richards] stopped by. They were both drunk. Mick came up to me and started telling me about a new Miles Davis record, and when I told him I hadn’t heard it, he lost his temper! He went over to Bill and said, ‘How can you work with someone who hasn’t heard Miles?’ I think because of that, I purposely stayed away from Miles, because maybe it would pull me in a different direction. I try not to listen to too much, because I don’t want to think, ‘I’d like this track to sound like that.”
Returning to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the meeting with the band at BBC studios went well, but one thing perplexed Ken for years – why did the hottest jazz-fusion band on the planet want to work with a man who had absolutely no track record in jazz? “I asked every member of the band and they have never given me a complete answer,” says Ken. However, in Ken’s 2012 autobiography, From Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, John McLaughlin told Ken that, “I wanted to record at the ‘world famous’ Trident studios and you were the man. I believe I was the lucky one in this deal!”
The first Mahavishnu Orchestra record Ken worked on was as engineer for Birds of Fire, released in 1973. The album was well-received (it went Gold) and was another showcase for the band’s talents. Billy Cobham’s studio drum kit was enormous, with two large bass drums, four racks of toms, three floor toms and nine cymbals, but Ken was unfazed, “I miked it in exactly the same way as I miked all other drum kits – I just used more mikes.”
The band played live in the studio and at high volumes, but this wasn’t new for Ken, who was used to this way of working from his days at EMI. However, when the band gathered in the control booth to hear the first playback from the sessions, Ken was somewhat put out when Jan Hammer came up to him afterwards and called him a “Bad motherfucker.” Cultural differences meant that Ken mistakenly thought that Hammer was being highly critical of him, rather than praising his audio expertise!
By the time the band came to record the album, Hammer had acquired a Moog synthesiser, which added new textures and effects to the sound. The album’s centrepiece was the ten-minute 'One Word', which includes solos by Laird, Hammer and Cobham. Although the impact of Birds of Fire was less than with the band’s debut album, it was nevertheless well received and highly influential, as Ken recalls when chatting to Jeff Beck at an awards ceremony in 2013.
“Jeff had just been presented with an award by George Martin and he was clearly moved. So, I went up to Jeff afterwards to ask him how he felt and he said, ‘You do realise that you changed everything?’ I didn’t know what he meant, and then he added, “Birds of Fire – that just changed everything.’ I thought, ‘Jeff Beck has just said that!’”
But sadly, Birds of Fire also laid the seeds for the band’s demise. The album includes a curious 24-second track, 'Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love', which is basically a band jam, with feedback, drums and electronic effects. When Birds of Fire was released, the track was solely credited to John McLaughlin, which did not go down well with most members of the band. Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman and Rick Laird, in particular, were frustrated in not getting their compositions recorded by the band, and relations between the musicians deteriorated.
By the time the band arrived at Trident studios in late June 1973 for the recording of a planned third album, the atmosphere within the band was toxic, as Ken recalls, “I remember Jerry Goodman putting his fist through a thick studio door. I don’t know how he didn’t break his hand.” Mahavishnu was a band of virtuosos, so is it possible for a band to have too much talent? “No,” says Ken, “everyone knew their place. Rick Laird played so simply underneath them and that’s what it needed, because there was too much else going on; it’s knowing when to shine. That’s what worked with the Mahavishnu Orchestra – it was a great team. I think the team fell apart because they felt that John was taking more from the team than anyone else.”
Many bands fall apart because of money issues, especially when it comes to writing credits. For the first two albums, all songs were credited to McLaughlin. “Writing is the downfall of so many bands,” notes Ken, “because it’s the writer that makes the most money.” Despite the sour atmosphere, the band recorded an album’s worth of material, including three compositions by McLaughlin and one each by Hammer, Goodman and Laird. But there was little motivation to release the music. Instead, the band recorded a live album the following August, Between Nothingness and Eternity, which included most of the songs recorded at the sessions.
The music from the Trident sessions was finally released in 1999, although Ken is a little sceptical about the way the album was promoted as ‘The Lost Trident Sessions’, “I was not surprised it was released, because the music was good. Before the album came out, I was getting so many phone calls over the years, asking if I had a copy of the recordings, because the tapes were supposed to be lost. But tapes don’t get lost that easily.”
The original Mahavishnu Band continued until the end of 1973 before breaking up in acrimony - whilst flying to Japan for a tour, McLaughlin was shown the transcript of a magazine article that featured interviews with the band – Hammer and Goodman were highly critical of McLaughlin. This was the final straw.
McLaughlin formed a second line-up for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, featuring Jean-Luc Ponty on violin; Narada Michael Walden, drums; Ralphe Armstrong, bass and Gayle Moran, keyboards and vocals. Their first recording was the 1974 album Apocalypse, an ambitious project that saw the band recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The album was produced and engineered respectively by two of Ken’s ex-colleagues from Abbey Road, George Martin and Geoff Emerick.
Their follow-up album, Vision of the Emerald Beyond, released in 1975, included a string trio and additional horn players. Ken co-produced the album with McLaughlin, so had Ken been influenced by the work of Martin and Emerick on the previous album? “Not in the slightest. I’m not over-keen on Apocalypse. Geoff was almost too clean an engineer for them. There needed to be that rock and roll edge that I don’t think Geoff ever had. I think that’s the big difference between [The Beatles Sgt] Pepper and Abbey Road, and the White Album in the middle – that’s why the White Album works. I’m a dirtier engineer – I like rock and roll, and I like that that rough edge, which is what The Beatles were after on the White Album. They wanted to go back to basics to what they used to be, and that was a rock and roll band.”
He adds that when recording Apocalypse, “Apparently they started off trying to do it all together in one studio. Now, there’s no way you are going to get anything with Mahavishnu playing with a large orchestra. They stopped recording and had the band in one studio. I’m not sure whether they tried recording live with the orchestra or whether it was overdubbed later. I think it could have been better.”
John McLaughlin had a strong vision for the band and the music, so what was it like co-producing an album with him? “You really didn’t have to put forward too many ideas with them and that’s the way I like it – it comes from them. Most of it was live – it was very easy.” How did the original and second line-ups compare? “Mike and Ralphe were funkier. Bill was jazz moving over to rock – he played unlike any other jazz musician. The first band had more energy.”
The second version of the Mahavishnu Orchestra was not only funkier, but also more melodic, and the music was more diverse. The opening number, 'Eternity’s Breath', featured haunting vocals by Moran, while her ethereal vocals graced the beautiful Earth Ship. The funky numbers included 'Can’t Stand Your Funk' and Walden’s 'Cosmic Strut', while frenetic tunes like 'Be Happy' and 'On the Way to Home' were more reminiscent of the first band. The aptly named 'Pastoral' highlighted Ponty’s melodic violin playing. McLaughlin says Visions of the Emerald Beyond is one his favourite albums. Looking back at his time working with the Mahavishnu Orchestra Ken says, “It was a remarkable band and its influence lasts to this day. I am very proud to be a part - it’s absolutely one of the proudest things for me.”
Miles Davis didn’t invent jazz-fusion, but he undoubtedly influenced its development. Many people think that his 1970 album Bitches Brew was a milestone in jazz-fusion, but it could be argued that an album Miles released a year earlier had a much greater impact on this genre. In A Silent Way saw Miles shifting his musical direction, with a greater use of electric guitar and electric keyboards. But what makes this album particularly special is that almost every musician involved in the sessions would go onto form influential jazz-fusion bands.
Miles used three keyboardists: Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea; electric guitarist John McLaughlin; saxophonist Wayne Shorter; bassist Dave Holland and drummer Tony Williams. Herbie Hancock formed Headhunters; Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, Weather Report, and Chick Corea, Return to Forever. Tony Williams formed Lifetime, and John McLaughlin founded the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
The first incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra comprised of John McLaughlin on guitar; Jan Hammer, keyboards; Billy Cobham, drums; Jerry Goodman, electric violin and Rick Laird, bass. The band had a power and an energy that blew audiences away – the band didn’t just blow the cobwebs out of your ears; they blew your ears off. The music was loud, intense and intoxicating, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra was soon a musical phenomenon that would influence countless rock and jazz musicians.
The band’s first album, The Inner Mounting Flame, released in 1971 by CBS Records, also made great waves, although ironically, not with Ken - at least not on initial hearing. “I was in France at the Château d'Hérouville studio working with Elton John and [producer] Gus Dudgeon,” he recalls, “when Elton and Gus were raving about this album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. We were listening to the record over dinner and there was a large group around the table talking and eating, so I just heard snippets of it. I wasn’t impressed – I thought: ‘what crap is this?’”
Later on, Ken was back in London working at Trident, “I was mixing an album and I got a call from CBS telling me that the Mahavishnu Orchestra were coming into town to do a BBC TV show and were interested in working with me on the next album. It was purely because Gus and Elton had raved about them that I thought, ‘There’s got to be something there’, so they sent me a copy of the album. I listened to it and it blew my mind – the energy, just everything about it. That energy continued all the way through, it almost became too dangerous for them.”
The move from pop to fusion was well-timed, adds Ken, “Working across the different genres has been perfect for my brain, because I get bored. I cannot be one of those people who make the same record time and time again. It has been a curse and saving grace for me. The curse is that the A&R guy [artists and repertoire, who are responsible for finding and nurturing talent] would like to pigeon-hole producers – if you have a successful heavy metal album, they will throw all sorts of heavy metal at you, but I was all over the place, so never on the top ten list for anything. I just wanted to jump around.”
When Ken is asked whether he was influenced by Miles’ Bitches Brew album, he laughs, “No – I don’t think I’ve even heard it! I remember doing a session at Electric Lady [studios in New York] with Bill [Cobham], and Mick Jagger and Keith [Richards] stopped by. They were both drunk. Mick came up to me and started telling me about a new Miles Davis record, and when I told him I hadn’t heard it, he lost his temper! He went over to Bill and said, ‘How can you work with someone who hasn’t heard Miles?’ I think because of that, I purposely stayed away from Miles, because maybe it would pull me in a different direction. I try not to listen to too much, because I don’t want to think, ‘I’d like this track to sound like that.”
Returning to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the meeting with the band at BBC studios went well, but one thing perplexed Ken for years – why did the hottest jazz-fusion band on the planet want to work with a man who had absolutely no track record in jazz? “I asked every member of the band and they have never given me a complete answer,” says Ken. However, in Ken’s 2012 autobiography, From Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, John McLaughlin told Ken that, “I wanted to record at the ‘world famous’ Trident studios and you were the man. I believe I was the lucky one in this deal!”
The first Mahavishnu Orchestra record Ken worked on was as engineer for Birds of Fire, released in 1973. The album was well-received (it went Gold) and was another showcase for the band’s talents. Billy Cobham’s studio drum kit was enormous, with two large bass drums, four racks of toms, three floor toms and nine cymbals, but Ken was unfazed, “I miked it in exactly the same way as I miked all other drum kits – I just used more mikes.”
The band played live in the studio and at high volumes, but this wasn’t new for Ken, who was used to this way of working from his days at EMI. However, when the band gathered in the control booth to hear the first playback from the sessions, Ken was somewhat put out when Jan Hammer came up to him afterwards and called him a “Bad motherfucker.” Cultural differences meant that Ken mistakenly thought that Hammer was being highly critical of him, rather than praising his audio expertise!
By the time the band came to record the album, Hammer had acquired a Moog synthesiser, which added new textures and effects to the sound. The album’s centrepiece was the ten-minute 'One Word', which includes solos by Laird, Hammer and Cobham. Although the impact of Birds of Fire was less than with the band’s debut album, it was nevertheless well received and highly influential, as Ken recalls when chatting to Jeff Beck at an awards ceremony in 2013.
“Jeff had just been presented with an award by George Martin and he was clearly moved. So, I went up to Jeff afterwards to ask him how he felt and he said, ‘You do realise that you changed everything?’ I didn’t know what he meant, and then he added, “Birds of Fire – that just changed everything.’ I thought, ‘Jeff Beck has just said that!’”
But sadly, Birds of Fire also laid the seeds for the band’s demise. The album includes a curious 24-second track, 'Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love', which is basically a band jam, with feedback, drums and electronic effects. When Birds of Fire was released, the track was solely credited to John McLaughlin, which did not go down well with most members of the band. Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman and Rick Laird, in particular, were frustrated in not getting their compositions recorded by the band, and relations between the musicians deteriorated.
By the time the band arrived at Trident studios in late June 1973 for the recording of a planned third album, the atmosphere within the band was toxic, as Ken recalls, “I remember Jerry Goodman putting his fist through a thick studio door. I don’t know how he didn’t break his hand.” Mahavishnu was a band of virtuosos, so is it possible for a band to have too much talent? “No,” says Ken, “everyone knew their place. Rick Laird played so simply underneath them and that’s what it needed, because there was too much else going on; it’s knowing when to shine. That’s what worked with the Mahavishnu Orchestra – it was a great team. I think the team fell apart because they felt that John was taking more from the team than anyone else.”
Many bands fall apart because of money issues, especially when it comes to writing credits. For the first two albums, all songs were credited to McLaughlin. “Writing is the downfall of so many bands,” notes Ken, “because it’s the writer that makes the most money.” Despite the sour atmosphere, the band recorded an album’s worth of material, including three compositions by McLaughlin and one each by Hammer, Goodman and Laird. But there was little motivation to release the music. Instead, the band recorded a live album the following August, Between Nothingness and Eternity, which included most of the songs recorded at the sessions.
The music from the Trident sessions was finally released in 1999, although Ken is a little sceptical about the way the album was promoted as ‘The Lost Trident Sessions’, “I was not surprised it was released, because the music was good. Before the album came out, I was getting so many phone calls over the years, asking if I had a copy of the recordings, because the tapes were supposed to be lost. But tapes don’t get lost that easily.”
The original Mahavishnu Band continued until the end of 1973 before breaking up in acrimony - whilst flying to Japan for a tour, McLaughlin was shown the transcript of a magazine article that featured interviews with the band – Hammer and Goodman were highly critical of McLaughlin. This was the final straw.
McLaughlin formed a second line-up for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, featuring Jean-Luc Ponty on violin; Narada Michael Walden, drums; Ralphe Armstrong, bass and Gayle Moran, keyboards and vocals. Their first recording was the 1974 album Apocalypse, an ambitious project that saw the band recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The album was produced and engineered respectively by two of Ken’s ex-colleagues from Abbey Road, George Martin and Geoff Emerick.
Their follow-up album, Vision of the Emerald Beyond, released in 1975, included a string trio and additional horn players. Ken co-produced the album with McLaughlin, so had Ken been influenced by the work of Martin and Emerick on the previous album? “Not in the slightest. I’m not over-keen on Apocalypse. Geoff was almost too clean an engineer for them. There needed to be that rock and roll edge that I don’t think Geoff ever had. I think that’s the big difference between [The Beatles Sgt] Pepper and Abbey Road, and the White Album in the middle – that’s why the White Album works. I’m a dirtier engineer – I like rock and roll, and I like that that rough edge, which is what The Beatles were after on the White Album. They wanted to go back to basics to what they used to be, and that was a rock and roll band.”
He adds that when recording Apocalypse, “Apparently they started off trying to do it all together in one studio. Now, there’s no way you are going to get anything with Mahavishnu playing with a large orchestra. They stopped recording and had the band in one studio. I’m not sure whether they tried recording live with the orchestra or whether it was overdubbed later. I think it could have been better.”
John McLaughlin had a strong vision for the band and the music, so what was it like co-producing an album with him? “You really didn’t have to put forward too many ideas with them and that’s the way I like it – it comes from them. Most of it was live – it was very easy.” How did the original and second line-ups compare? “Mike and Ralphe were funkier. Bill was jazz moving over to rock – he played unlike any other jazz musician. The first band had more energy.”
The second version of the Mahavishnu Orchestra was not only funkier, but also more melodic, and the music was more diverse. The opening number, 'Eternity’s Breath', featured haunting vocals by Moran, while her ethereal vocals graced the beautiful Earth Ship. The funky numbers included 'Can’t Stand Your Funk' and Walden’s 'Cosmic Strut', while frenetic tunes like 'Be Happy' and 'On the Way to Home' were more reminiscent of the first band. The aptly named 'Pastoral' highlighted Ponty’s melodic violin playing. McLaughlin says Visions of the Emerald Beyond is one his favourite albums. Looking back at his time working with the Mahavishnu Orchestra Ken says, “It was a remarkable band and its influence lasts to this day. I am very proud to be a part - it’s absolutely one of the proudest things for me.”
Billy Cobham
Billy Cobham’s debut solo album Spectrum, released in October 1973, is quite simply, a fusion masterpiece. Cobham produced the album and Ken is credited as “recording and remix engineer, and all-round objective ear.” Many artists - including Jeff Beck and Stanley Clarke – have been influenced by its sound. Spectrum consists of ten tunes, although four are short musical interludes. Two songs – 'Spectrum' and 'Le Lis' - are straight ahead jazz tracks featuring Joe Farrell on sax and Ron Carter on bass, but the tracks that made the biggest waves were four jazz-rock tunes recorded by Cobham, along with twenty-one year-old rock guitarist Tommy Bolin, Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Jan Hammer and session bassist Leland Sklar.
Spectrum opens with 'Quadrant Four', a double bass shuffle featuring thundering drumming from Cobham, blistering keyboard work by Hammer and lots of fiery guitar from Bolin. The playing is so fast, furious and wild that someone once asked Cobham if the band had been on drugs – he assured the interviewer that it was definitely not the case. The other three tunes recorded by this quartet: 'Stratus', 'Red Baron' and 'Taurian Matador' have all become part of the jazz canon.
The four fusion tracks were recorded live in the studio and very quickly – the sessions, recorded in New York at Electric Lady Studio, lasted just three days. “The sessions were great. Tommy Bolin was just a joy,” recalls Ken, “we just left him to it. It was that perfect team – he just fitted in so perfectly. He had an echoplex [a tape delay effect] and said, ‘let me just try this.’ We had no idea what he was going to do and it just worked.”
Cobham told Ray Shasho what the sessions with Tommy Bolin were like, “It was beyond fun! It’s like being in a room with your best friends. You have Jan Hammer, Tommy and Lee Sklar …it was more like, okay, what do we do now? We did that, okay, do you have anything else? This is one thing that I learned from Miles … match the people with the music.”
Ken describes how he recorded the sessions, “There was no variation – I recorded it like a rock session. I started work on four-track [recording] and equipment that was very limited, so I learnt early on that everything happens in the studio and not in the control room – we’re there to add the icing on the cake. Through that, I’ve come up with mikes and the placement of them that work for me. And it’s what changes in the studio – the different musicians, the different instruments, that’s what different.”
Ken believes that Spectrum is the epitome of jazz-fusion, “You ask, ‘what makes jazz-fusion special, and what did jazz bring to rock, and rock being to jazz? I say, ‘listen to Spectrum – and you’ll get it.’ You’ve got the jazz musicians Jan and Bill, and you’ve got the straight forward bass session guy and you’ve got Tommy Bolin – he wanted to be a rock and roll star. He wanted to die that way – rock and roll was everything to him [sadly, Bolin would from a drug overdose aged twenty-five]. What Tommy brought to the album was phenomenal. I’m sure that if Jan or Bill had said certain musical things to Tommy, he wouldn’t have understood what they were saying, but that didn’t matter – he was the perfect fit for the music.”
Ken went onto to co-produce several more albums with Cobham: Crosswinds (1974), Total Eclipse (1974) and a live album, Shabazz (1975). On all three records, Cobham’s core band consisted of guitarist John Abercrombe, along with Michael Brecker (saxophone) and Randy Brecker (trumpet).“I’m very much a believer that most - if not all - good things come from having the right team and the team Billy had for Spectrum was perfect,” says Ken, “After that, it became a little too jazz. John Abercrombie is very much a jazz player. The electric guitar is the epitome of rock and roll and if someone is playing it the right way, that’s what gives it the real rock and roll edge, and that’s what Tommy brought and that’s what Jeff Beck would bring to it, but others wouldn’t necessarily. John Abercrombie is a great musician, but he’s a jazz player adding distortion to try and make it become more rock and roll, and it doesn’t. Michael Brecker was amazing, and Randy is a great player, but I tend to think that he relied a bit too much on electronics.”
Going back to Spectrum, it’s hard to believe that a masterpiece like that could be conceived under such difficult circumstances – when Cobham went into the studio to record the album, he realised that the Mahavishnu Orchestra was disintegrating and that his position in the band was precarious, as he explained to Ray Shasho, “I knew the jig was up with me and Mahavishnu Orchestra; I needed something to try and get me back into the studio scene. I never considered myself to be any kind of leader, so if I could just get a record out or some kind of calling card.”
The critical response to Spectrum was overwhelmingly positive and what’s more, it got lots of radio play and sales were beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Cobham explained how the album’s success took him by surprise: “When Atlantic Records told me six months later that I had a hit record, I’m thinking … oh, you mean that thing [session] I did with Jackie & Roy? [a jazz vocal duo] I wasn’t thinking about me. I’m thinking …[singer] Esther Phillips, Jackie & Roy, [jazz pianist] Mose Allison … anybody but me. And all of a sudden, ‘no, it’s your record.’ I thought they were joking because I never listened to the radio.”
Did Ken know he was making a special record at the time? “I like to think that every record I do is special, but whether the general public will think so, that’s in the laps of the gods. I want to make something special for myself and the artist – that’s the way it’s always been. Over time, I was surprised by the success of Spectrum – I didn’t realise it would have that kind of effect on people. I knew it was a good album, but from there, it’s down to what the record company does and what the people like.”
Billy Cobham’s debut solo album Spectrum, released in October 1973, is quite simply, a fusion masterpiece. Cobham produced the album and Ken is credited as “recording and remix engineer, and all-round objective ear.” Many artists - including Jeff Beck and Stanley Clarke – have been influenced by its sound. Spectrum consists of ten tunes, although four are short musical interludes. Two songs – 'Spectrum' and 'Le Lis' - are straight ahead jazz tracks featuring Joe Farrell on sax and Ron Carter on bass, but the tracks that made the biggest waves were four jazz-rock tunes recorded by Cobham, along with twenty-one year-old rock guitarist Tommy Bolin, Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Jan Hammer and session bassist Leland Sklar.
Spectrum opens with 'Quadrant Four', a double bass shuffle featuring thundering drumming from Cobham, blistering keyboard work by Hammer and lots of fiery guitar from Bolin. The playing is so fast, furious and wild that someone once asked Cobham if the band had been on drugs – he assured the interviewer that it was definitely not the case. The other three tunes recorded by this quartet: 'Stratus', 'Red Baron' and 'Taurian Matador' have all become part of the jazz canon.
The four fusion tracks were recorded live in the studio and very quickly – the sessions, recorded in New York at Electric Lady Studio, lasted just three days. “The sessions were great. Tommy Bolin was just a joy,” recalls Ken, “we just left him to it. It was that perfect team – he just fitted in so perfectly. He had an echoplex [a tape delay effect] and said, ‘let me just try this.’ We had no idea what he was going to do and it just worked.”
Cobham told Ray Shasho what the sessions with Tommy Bolin were like, “It was beyond fun! It’s like being in a room with your best friends. You have Jan Hammer, Tommy and Lee Sklar …it was more like, okay, what do we do now? We did that, okay, do you have anything else? This is one thing that I learned from Miles … match the people with the music.”
Ken describes how he recorded the sessions, “There was no variation – I recorded it like a rock session. I started work on four-track [recording] and equipment that was very limited, so I learnt early on that everything happens in the studio and not in the control room – we’re there to add the icing on the cake. Through that, I’ve come up with mikes and the placement of them that work for me. And it’s what changes in the studio – the different musicians, the different instruments, that’s what different.”
Ken believes that Spectrum is the epitome of jazz-fusion, “You ask, ‘what makes jazz-fusion special, and what did jazz bring to rock, and rock being to jazz? I say, ‘listen to Spectrum – and you’ll get it.’ You’ve got the jazz musicians Jan and Bill, and you’ve got the straight forward bass session guy and you’ve got Tommy Bolin – he wanted to be a rock and roll star. He wanted to die that way – rock and roll was everything to him [sadly, Bolin would from a drug overdose aged twenty-five]. What Tommy brought to the album was phenomenal. I’m sure that if Jan or Bill had said certain musical things to Tommy, he wouldn’t have understood what they were saying, but that didn’t matter – he was the perfect fit for the music.”
Ken went onto to co-produce several more albums with Cobham: Crosswinds (1974), Total Eclipse (1974) and a live album, Shabazz (1975). On all three records, Cobham’s core band consisted of guitarist John Abercrombe, along with Michael Brecker (saxophone) and Randy Brecker (trumpet).“I’m very much a believer that most - if not all - good things come from having the right team and the team Billy had for Spectrum was perfect,” says Ken, “After that, it became a little too jazz. John Abercrombie is very much a jazz player. The electric guitar is the epitome of rock and roll and if someone is playing it the right way, that’s what gives it the real rock and roll edge, and that’s what Tommy brought and that’s what Jeff Beck would bring to it, but others wouldn’t necessarily. John Abercrombie is a great musician, but he’s a jazz player adding distortion to try and make it become more rock and roll, and it doesn’t. Michael Brecker was amazing, and Randy is a great player, but I tend to think that he relied a bit too much on electronics.”
Going back to Spectrum, it’s hard to believe that a masterpiece like that could be conceived under such difficult circumstances – when Cobham went into the studio to record the album, he realised that the Mahavishnu Orchestra was disintegrating and that his position in the band was precarious, as he explained to Ray Shasho, “I knew the jig was up with me and Mahavishnu Orchestra; I needed something to try and get me back into the studio scene. I never considered myself to be any kind of leader, so if I could just get a record out or some kind of calling card.”
The critical response to Spectrum was overwhelmingly positive and what’s more, it got lots of radio play and sales were beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Cobham explained how the album’s success took him by surprise: “When Atlantic Records told me six months later that I had a hit record, I’m thinking … oh, you mean that thing [session] I did with Jackie & Roy? [a jazz vocal duo] I wasn’t thinking about me. I’m thinking …[singer] Esther Phillips, Jackie & Roy, [jazz pianist] Mose Allison … anybody but me. And all of a sudden, ‘no, it’s your record.’ I thought they were joking because I never listened to the radio.”
Did Ken know he was making a special record at the time? “I like to think that every record I do is special, but whether the general public will think so, that’s in the laps of the gods. I want to make something special for myself and the artist – that’s the way it’s always been. Over time, I was surprised by the success of Spectrum – I didn’t realise it would have that kind of effect on people. I knew it was a good album, but from there, it’s down to what the record company does and what the people like.”
