Here’s Billy Cobham playing with Ray Barretto in 1973. The tom toms are just outrageous— really exciting:
You never hear that sound any more— Steve Gadd just wiped everybody else out for fusion tom tom sounds— after him it was all 10 and 12 inch Yamahas with Pinstripes on them. That’s still the standard studio pan-pop/funk sound you hear on everything. I guess Cobham is using Black Dots, tuned fairly tight, maybe with the bottoms heads a little looser than the top.
Here he is playing a large Gretsch set in 1974, with what look like Pinstripes on the toms, but they sure don’t sound like them. Nice 22″ Swish cymbal with ~10 rivets in it, there, too— people used to play loud enough to merit a cymbal like that. There was a really unbridled vibe to 70s music that, for all the skill of current players, we’re missing today.