Badbird
Never banned
http://music.msn.com/miles-davis/story/review/?icid=MUSIC2>1=28102
Miles Davis' double album "Bitches Brew," released 40 years ago, was and is one of the most important records in jazz history. Initially greeted by older critics and fans as heresy, the set combined confident, forceful improvisation, rock rhythms and state-of-the-art studio technology alien to jazz loyalists. The iconic trumpeter's willingness to step right over any stylistic lines that listeners or critics might have drawn proved both shocking and prescient.
Davis and his collaborators were inventing an entirely new form of music—jazz-rock fusion—but nothing his band members did on their own, before or since, sounded anything like it. And its mysterious pull lingers. As writer Greg Tate put it in a 2007 essay, "'Bitches Brew' remains the undiscovered country today because you can still hear it anew every time."
A newly released 40th anniversary edition of the project reminds us just how powerful - and divisive - a "Brew" this was.
SELLING OUT
Miles' move toward electric music was as much about commerce as art—a fact even the trumpeter admitted. In partnership with Clive Davis, the head of Columbia Records at the time, he set out to win over young listeners, and in the process break into larger concert venues. And while an album featuring 26-minute instrumentals influenced by free jazz and avant-garde electronic music could hardly be considered a "concession" to anyone or anything, jazz critics scorned the electric instruments and the lack of swing, while rock fans flocked to see Miles' amped-up quintet at the Fillmores East and West. And upon its release, "Bitches Brew" (the sessions for which began the day after the Woodstock festival ended) went gold, and remains one of Davis' most popular albums to this day.
JAZZ FOR DEADHEADS
"Bitches Brew" is a swirling, psychedelic storm of sound. Davis' trumpet is definitely the lead instrument, but he's fighting for space alongside electric guitar, two bassists (one acoustic and one electric), multiple drummers and percussionists, several electric keyboardists, saxophone and bass clarinet. Songs arise gradually, building out of what sometimes sounds like unfocused jamming, and they end the same way. But when the band builds up a head of steam, as on "John McLaughlin," they muster all the power of the Grateful Dead, who were also peaking in 1969. Indeed, "Bitches Brew" is almost a jazz counterpart to the San Francisco band's pivotal "Live/Dead," with the title track serving as Miles' own equivalent to the Dead's shape-shifting "Dark Star." Jazz fans weren't ready for it, but neither were rock fans.
THE STUDIO AS INSTRUMENT
Traditionally, jazz albums featured complete takes of songs, recorded live in the studio. Miles and producer Teo Macero broke new ground on "Bitches Brew," having band members jam on minimalist motifs and harmonic sketches rather than full compositions, generating raw material that was chopped up and reshaped after the fact, creating rhythm loops and bringing instruments up and down in the mix. Nobody knew what they had until they were finished putting all the pieces together. This is especially true of "Pharaoh's Dance" and "Bitches Brew," the side-long tracks that make up the original first disc of the two-LP set issued in 1970. Another track, "John McLaughlin," is an excerpt from a take of "Bitches Brew" that earned its own spot on the final album. Davis biographer John Szwed would subsequently call the album Miles' "Sgt. Pepper."
THE FATHER OF FUSION
Though it was never truly imitated (and certainly never duplicated), "Bitches Brew" was the catalyst for a massive upheaval of the jazz landscape. In the years that followed its release, various players from the sessions (not all of whom were part of Miles' touring band) spun off into their own groups, taking some of his ideas about collective improvisation and the value of electronic— especially amplification—with them. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter and keyboardist Josef Zawinul formed Weather Report; guitarist John McLaughlin led the Mahavishnu Orchestra; and keyboardist Chick Corea put together Return to Forever. All these bands had hit albums and sold out concerts worldwide in the '70s, frequently outselling Davis himself.
FOR THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG
Miles' exploration of rock rhythms was part of a larger fascination with youth culture and style, inspired by his one-year marriage to Betty Mabry (Betty Davis), a singer-songwriter 20 years his junior. She dressed him in ultra-hip fashions and introduced him to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone; he tried to set up collaborations with both men, but Stone was too fried on drugs to make it happen, and Hendrix died before he and Davis could get into the studio together. Still, the influence of Hendrix, Stone and James Brown began to take root on the trumpeter's 1968 album "Filles de Kilimanjaro" on 1969's "In a Silent Way," and can be heard all over Miles' music between 1970 and his first retirement in 1975.
TURN IT UP TO 11
Onstage, Miles was still playing with a basic quintet in 1969 and 1970, occasionally adding percussionist Airto Moreira or guitarist John McLaughlin. In the studio, though, a track might have two drummers and as many as three keyboardists, creating an ocean of sound or a thunderous roar, as needed. And as he moved from jazz clubs like Chicago's Plugged Nickel to rock venues like the Fillmores in New York and San Francisco, he started employing major amplification, even playing his trumpet through a wah-wah pedal. If he was going to be opening for Neil Young and Crazy Horse, as he did in March 1970, he had no choice.
THE SUPERGROUP THAT NEVER WAS
When Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys played their first show on New Year's Eve 1969/70, Miles was in the audience. But the trumpeter's eagerness to collaborate with rock stars never quite bore fruit. The planned session with Hendrix fell apart at the last minute, reportedly over money; a similar live collaboration with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce never happened, either; and though Davis visited Sly Stone at home, nothing came of that, either. It wasn't until the end of 1987 that Davis' rock dreams came true, as he jammed onstage with Prince at a New Year's Eve concert at Paisley Park.
To celebrate the album's 40th Anniversary, Sony has repackaged it in several ways: There's a three-disc version that appends a 1970 concert from Tanglewood, Mass., as well as a deluxe box that includes that three-disc set, the original album on double vinyl, and a DVD of a November 1969 Copenhagen concert. The four-disc "Complete Bitches Brew Sessions," originally released in 1998, included many tracks from other 1969-70 studio dates; that's now also part of the "Genius of Miles Davis" box, which compiles eight such "complete sessions" boxes (43 discs of material in all) in a trumpet case, with a replica mouthpiece, a lithograph and a T-shirt, all for only $1,200.
Miles Davis' double album "Bitches Brew," released 40 years ago, was and is one of the most important records in jazz history. Initially greeted by older critics and fans as heresy, the set combined confident, forceful improvisation, rock rhythms and state-of-the-art studio technology alien to jazz loyalists. The iconic trumpeter's willingness to step right over any stylistic lines that listeners or critics might have drawn proved both shocking and prescient.
Davis and his collaborators were inventing an entirely new form of music—jazz-rock fusion—but nothing his band members did on their own, before or since, sounded anything like it. And its mysterious pull lingers. As writer Greg Tate put it in a 2007 essay, "'Bitches Brew' remains the undiscovered country today because you can still hear it anew every time."
A newly released 40th anniversary edition of the project reminds us just how powerful - and divisive - a "Brew" this was.
SELLING OUT
Miles' move toward electric music was as much about commerce as art—a fact even the trumpeter admitted. In partnership with Clive Davis, the head of Columbia Records at the time, he set out to win over young listeners, and in the process break into larger concert venues. And while an album featuring 26-minute instrumentals influenced by free jazz and avant-garde electronic music could hardly be considered a "concession" to anyone or anything, jazz critics scorned the electric instruments and the lack of swing, while rock fans flocked to see Miles' amped-up quintet at the Fillmores East and West. And upon its release, "Bitches Brew" (the sessions for which began the day after the Woodstock festival ended) went gold, and remains one of Davis' most popular albums to this day.
JAZZ FOR DEADHEADS
"Bitches Brew" is a swirling, psychedelic storm of sound. Davis' trumpet is definitely the lead instrument, but he's fighting for space alongside electric guitar, two bassists (one acoustic and one electric), multiple drummers and percussionists, several electric keyboardists, saxophone and bass clarinet. Songs arise gradually, building out of what sometimes sounds like unfocused jamming, and they end the same way. But when the band builds up a head of steam, as on "John McLaughlin," they muster all the power of the Grateful Dead, who were also peaking in 1969. Indeed, "Bitches Brew" is almost a jazz counterpart to the San Francisco band's pivotal "Live/Dead," with the title track serving as Miles' own equivalent to the Dead's shape-shifting "Dark Star." Jazz fans weren't ready for it, but neither were rock fans.
THE STUDIO AS INSTRUMENT
Traditionally, jazz albums featured complete takes of songs, recorded live in the studio. Miles and producer Teo Macero broke new ground on "Bitches Brew," having band members jam on minimalist motifs and harmonic sketches rather than full compositions, generating raw material that was chopped up and reshaped after the fact, creating rhythm loops and bringing instruments up and down in the mix. Nobody knew what they had until they were finished putting all the pieces together. This is especially true of "Pharaoh's Dance" and "Bitches Brew," the side-long tracks that make up the original first disc of the two-LP set issued in 1970. Another track, "John McLaughlin," is an excerpt from a take of "Bitches Brew" that earned its own spot on the final album. Davis biographer John Szwed would subsequently call the album Miles' "Sgt. Pepper."
THE FATHER OF FUSION
Though it was never truly imitated (and certainly never duplicated), "Bitches Brew" was the catalyst for a massive upheaval of the jazz landscape. In the years that followed its release, various players from the sessions (not all of whom were part of Miles' touring band) spun off into their own groups, taking some of his ideas about collective improvisation and the value of electronic— especially amplification—with them. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter and keyboardist Josef Zawinul formed Weather Report; guitarist John McLaughlin led the Mahavishnu Orchestra; and keyboardist Chick Corea put together Return to Forever. All these bands had hit albums and sold out concerts worldwide in the '70s, frequently outselling Davis himself.
FOR THOSE WHO THINK YOUNG
Miles' exploration of rock rhythms was part of a larger fascination with youth culture and style, inspired by his one-year marriage to Betty Mabry (Betty Davis), a singer-songwriter 20 years his junior. She dressed him in ultra-hip fashions and introduced him to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone; he tried to set up collaborations with both men, but Stone was too fried on drugs to make it happen, and Hendrix died before he and Davis could get into the studio together. Still, the influence of Hendrix, Stone and James Brown began to take root on the trumpeter's 1968 album "Filles de Kilimanjaro" on 1969's "In a Silent Way," and can be heard all over Miles' music between 1970 and his first retirement in 1975.
TURN IT UP TO 11
Onstage, Miles was still playing with a basic quintet in 1969 and 1970, occasionally adding percussionist Airto Moreira or guitarist John McLaughlin. In the studio, though, a track might have two drummers and as many as three keyboardists, creating an ocean of sound or a thunderous roar, as needed. And as he moved from jazz clubs like Chicago's Plugged Nickel to rock venues like the Fillmores in New York and San Francisco, he started employing major amplification, even playing his trumpet through a wah-wah pedal. If he was going to be opening for Neil Young and Crazy Horse, as he did in March 1970, he had no choice.
THE SUPERGROUP THAT NEVER WAS
When Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys played their first show on New Year's Eve 1969/70, Miles was in the audience. But the trumpeter's eagerness to collaborate with rock stars never quite bore fruit. The planned session with Hendrix fell apart at the last minute, reportedly over money; a similar live collaboration with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce never happened, either; and though Davis visited Sly Stone at home, nothing came of that, either. It wasn't until the end of 1987 that Davis' rock dreams came true, as he jammed onstage with Prince at a New Year's Eve concert at Paisley Park.
To celebrate the album's 40th Anniversary, Sony has repackaged it in several ways: There's a three-disc version that appends a 1970 concert from Tanglewood, Mass., as well as a deluxe box that includes that three-disc set, the original album on double vinyl, and a DVD of a November 1969 Copenhagen concert. The four-disc "Complete Bitches Brew Sessions," originally released in 1998, included many tracks from other 1969-70 studio dates; that's now also part of the "Genius of Miles Davis" box, which compiles eight such "complete sessions" boxes (43 discs of material in all) in a trumpet case, with a replica mouthpiece, a lithograph and a T-shirt, all for only $1,200.
That's just too fucking funny!
