Billy Cobham (born May 16, 1944) – Moon Germs (1974)

For his third solo LP Total Eclipse, Cobham wrote and arranged this phenomenal jazz-funk jam featuring Cornell Dupree on guitar and Mike and Randy Brecker on horns.

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Billy Cobham rose to fame drumming with Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra before launching his own prolific solo career.

William Emanuel Cobham Jr. was born in Panama. At the age of three his family moved to Brooklyn in New York City. He started playing drums the following year at age four. He attended the High School of Music & Art in Harlem, then served in the U.S. Army from 1965-68 and drummed with an Army band.

Once out of the service, he joined Horace Silver’s Quintet and then became a house drummer for Atlantic Records, and a session player for Creed Taylor’s labels CTI and Kudu. He toured with Miles Davis and played on his seminal jazz fusion album Bitches Brew (1970), and also his superb soundtrack A Tribute To Jack Johnson (1971), which featured the masterpiece workout “Right Off.”

He and Davis’ guitarist John McLaughlin left the group in 1971 to form the Mahavishnu Orchestra along with keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, and bassist Rick Laird. From 1971 to 1973, they toured and recorded non-stop, releasing the acclaimed studio albums The Inner Mounting Flame (1971) and Birds of Fire (1973) and the live LP Between Nothingness & Eternity (1973).

Cobham’s first solo LP Spectrum (1973) was recorded at Electric Lady Studios and released on Atlantic. It went to #1 on the jazz charts and became a surprise crossover hit, landing at #26 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts.

For his third solo LP Total Eclipse (1974), Cobham wrote and arranged the phenomenal jazz-funk jam “Moon Germs.“ It featured Cornell Dupree on the track’s first guitar solo and David Earle Johnson on congas.

Besides Cobham on drums and timpani, the rest of the album’s stellar lineup included Glenn Ferris on bass and tenor trombone; Alex Blake on electric bass; Mike Brecker on flute and saxes; Randy Brecker on trumpet and flugelhorn; John Abercrombie on electric and ovation guitars; and Milcho Leviev on keyboards. The entire LP was co-produced by Cobham and Ken Scott.

Although less successful on the jazz and pop charts than his previous two albums, Total Eclipse still made it to #6 Jazz and #36 on the Billboard Top 200, and actually peaked higher on the R&B charts (#12) than his second album Crosswinds (1974) had charted at #19.

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