Billy Cobham, Spectrum

I chanced upon this beauty years ago when my friend asked me to identify the guitarist. Turns out it was Tommy Bolin, later of Deep Purple fame. Quite special he was too. Then I learnt more about the other folk on the Spectrum album, and it read like a who's who of musicians. But the whole thing was contrived by, er, the drummer... odd in many circles but not in jazz (necessarily); and in this case understandable, as the man with the sticks is Billy Cobham. If you know anything about drumming at all, you will instantaneously have your world unravel around you; the musicianship is simply astonishing.

The album itself has some neat melodies, and the interplay between Bolin and Jan Hammer (yes him) is a joy to listen to. It's on the outer reaches of jazz and overlaps with rock and hard funk; but if you like it a bit upbeat, a bit clever, and a bit on the aggressive side, you'll love it.

How good is it? Well everyone on this album went on to greater things, Massive Attack deemed it good enough to sample the baseline, and if you want to find out what peerless drumming and time-keeping is all about, this is all you'll ever need - even though it was 1973 this was done, I doubt you'll find anything that touches it since.