POWERPLAY

Personnel: Billy Cobham (drums, programming); Gerry Etkins, Onaje Allan Gumbs (keyboards); Dean Browne (guitar); Baron Browne (bass); Sa Davis (percussion). Producers: Billy Cobham, Onaje Allan Gumbs. Recorded at Atlantic Studios and The Review Room, New York, New York. All tracks have been digitally remastered. Personnel: Billy Cobham (drums, drum programming); Dean Brown (guitar, synthesizer); Gerry Etkins (keyboards); Sa Davis (percussion); Wayne Cobham (programming). Audio Mixer: Josiah Gluck. Recording information: Atlantic Studios, New York, NY; The Review Room, New York, NY. Photographers: Gary Feinstein; Fran Vogel. Cobham's tenure in Mahavishnu Orchestra was fast becoming ancient history when POWER PLAY, his second long-player on GRP, was released. He was already being discovered by a whole new audience opened up via "adult contemporary" radio programming, but that particular audience, in its ignorance of Cobham's previous claim to fame, failed to see beyond the GRP borderlines. The point is that POWER PLAY is, in fact, one of the most sophisticated, immediately likeable, technically proficient, and simply strongest albums drummer Cobham's ever released. His compositional skills are brought mightily to the fore along with his adroit touch with all manner of percussion, acoustic and electronic. Ignore the new-ageisms inherent in the title "Zanzibar Breeze," and instead revel in the soaring, futuristic rhythms and varied hues of electronic pastels wafting amidst the beats. This could almost be a softer Cybotron-ish pre-techno lite. Then there's the stompin' polyrhythmic thrust of "Radioactive" and the tribal fusion flexing its ethnic muscle on the "Summit Afrique" suite. Finally, Cobham brings it all back home with the charming urban synthfunk of "Tinseltown." Percussion pedigree aside, Cobham makes his biorhythms march to the beat of a supremely intelligent jazz drummer.