Simon Phillips Vintage Drum

In collaboration with London-based rock drummer Simon Phillips and Germany’s very own NDR Big Band, 21 Spices is the latest offering from the Bombay-bred musical virtuoso Trilok Gurtu. Easily seen as the meeting of two maestros from the world of percussion, this album is a unique concoction of heady rhythms, raw sounds of drums and tabla and the opulence of a philharmonic orchestra.

egendary drummer Simon Phillips returns with Protocol V, once again reimagining his adventurous jazz/fusion outfit. Instrumentation is expanded to a quintet format, including saxophone, launching the group into sonic territory familiar to fans of Chick Corea's Elektric Band in the late 1980s. Strands of DNA from other iconic artists like John McLaughlin, Tony Williams, Allan Holdsworth and Jan Hammer are woven throughout. Simon's impressive compositional skills are also on display, culminating in an 11-minute mini-suite called "The Long Road Home."

Respected British drummer Simon Phillips has a resume that’s as long as your arm…assuming you have a long arm. Here on his fourth release under the Protocol title he once again is performing with Greg Howe, Ernest Tibbs and Dennis Hamm. Together they’ve created fifty-eight minutes of some of the finest instrumental Fusion music I’ve heard in a long time. Most of these tunes are longer, in the six to eight minute range allowing for a great mix of combo performance and soloing. After all, this is a genre and an album that showcases performance and instrumental virtuosity, and on Protocol 4 we get plenty of both.

A professional musician from the age of 12, Simon Phillips' drumming sound and style is instantly recognizable. He's toured and recorded with just about every major rock and pop act imaginable; from Mick Jagger, The Who and Toto to Judas Priest, Mike Oldfield, and Joe Satriani. Protocol 3 is real-deal jazz rock. No avant-garde trappings, smooth jazz noodling or proggy pretensions (well, maybe a little bit of the latter) here.

Drummer and producer Simon Phillips will release his newest album, Protocol 4, on October 27, 2017 on Phantom Recordings, which is distributed by Amped. The album fuses elements of rock, jazz, funk, classical, and world music, and features songs that Phillips wrote while on tour.

Protocol II arrives fourteen years after drummer Simon Phillips' last leader date—the hard bop and post-bop based Vantage Point (Jazzline Records, 2000). And it comes approximately a quarter century after the original Protocol (Music for Nations, 1988)—a true solo date that had Phillips covering all the instruments, filling in the space around his calling-card drumming.

Protocol is the début album/EP from drummer/percussionist Simon Phillips. It was released in 1988 on the Music for Nations label, a company which had, at one time, bands such as Metallica and Slayer. Of the release, Phillips calls it "a record of experimental observations" and goes on to say "It was a good feeling to have finally released my first solo CD, and although not what I had originally planned, it was a start to my solo career.