Billy Cobham

William Emanuel Cobham Jr. (born May 16, 1944) is a Panamanian-American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.

Cobham's influence stretched far beyond jazz: prog contemporaries like Bill Bruford of King Crimson listened closely to what he was up to, younger drummers like Danny Carey of Tool learned from him, and Prince played a version of Cobham's Stratus in concert. Phil Collins, who has named Mahavishnu Orchestra's The Inner Mounting Flame as a key influence on his early style said, "Billy Cobham played some of the finest drumming I've ever heard on that record."