Dazzling drummer Billy Cobham heads for Ronnie Scott's

6:05pm Thursday 7th February 2008

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I've always fancied a trip to Ronnie Scott's legendary jazz club in London, but as yet never managed it.

It sounds like one of those really cool places where you'd just like to hang out and soak up the atmosphere - not to mention checking out the world-class line-up of players that grace its Soho location.

One gig to come is from the great Billy Cobham, who plays three-nights at the club, from February 21-23.

As well as being a dazzling drummer, he's also an accomplished composer and record producer.

And I hear that he was at the forefront of the electronic music industry and its development through jazz. He was one of the first percussionists, along with Max Roach and Tony Williams, to utilize the Electronic Drum Controller made in 1968 by the Meazzi Drum Company in Italy, while on concert tour with Horace Silver.

Mister rhythm' is also one of the few percussionists, specializing in the jazz drum set to lead his own band. The award winning man of many sticks has custom designed trend setting acoustic and electronic drum sets and has endorsed products that he created and refined.

He has performed on literarily hundreds of records with his own groups and with some of music's most luminary artists.

His explosive drumming and artistry has made him part of the history of modern music and since 1980 he has been dividing his time between his home in Zurich and the United States. He was born in 1944 in Panama, to talented parents and has a brother, Wayne, whose a producer, horn player, midi specialist, and writer.

However, his cousins who played and constructed steel drums and congas in Panama kindled Billy's love for the drums.

The Cobhams moved to New York City in 1947, when Billy was three and he made his stage debut performing with his father at the tender age of eight.

He developed his voracious appetite for drumming in the highly competitive Drum and Bugle Corps arena with St Catherine's Queensmen, and attended New York's famed High School of Music and Art to study music theory and drum technique with seminars by such renowned talents as Thelonious Monk and Stan Getz.

On the bill with Billy for the shows at Ronnie's will be the five young jazz musicians of Empirical - who in just over the 12 months since they got together won the EBU European Jazz Competition and the esteemed Peter Whittingham Jazz Award 2007.

The guys self-titled debut album - produced by the way by no less than Courtney Pine- has received plenty of plaudits and there are plenty of people raving over the band's sophisticated contemporary bop, rooted in traditional jazz, but fresh and original enough to sweep the music forward.

I can vouch for that, I've heard it.

So, beat a path Ronnie's place.

Apparently, the jazz venue had a major re-furb in 2005/06 and has some stellar names programmed in for 2008.

Among the gigs in the pipeline is one on February 17, by soul singer Natalie Williams and Soul Family Sunday, which offers the chance to see some of the best R&B, soul and jazz musicians in the UK in full swing.

Included in the family' will be players such as Vula, (Basement Jaxx), Robin Mullarkey (Zero 7), and Phil Peskett (Moloko), just to name a few.

For further information about Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club telephone 020-7439-0747 or visit www.ronniescotts.co.uk.