There will be a lot to say in future posts about Davis, whose "mercurial" persona on and off stage was nearly as commented upon as his music, but it is hard to think of anything he did that was as controversial and groundbreaking musically as the 1970 album, Bitches Brew. The title was somewhat shocking and the beautiful and eye-catching cover art work also drew much attention, but the music . . . well, there would be much arguing among musicians, fans and, naturally, critics about whether Davis was a revolutionary taking jazz to the only logical place it could go after the "New Thing" or free jazz dominance of the music through the 60s or a sell-out, pandering out to a rock audience to maintain popularity and prosperity. Or, worse, a destroyer of jazz, whose move into the fusion of jazz with rock via an emphasis on amplified electronic instrumentation encouraged the excesses that followed in the 70s (and, maybe even paved the way for the dreaded smooth jazz of later years.)
YHB first heard Bitches Brew about 1984, after dipping a toe into the waters with Davis's current album, Decoy. That latter album and most of the output after the trumpeter's 1981 comeback won't be covered in this blog, excepting the very interesting album Aura, recorded in 1985 and released a few years after that (and the three Davis concerts attended in the late 80s were good, entertaining gigs.) But, the riches of Bitches Brew along with the hearing of In a Silent Way, The Birth of the Cool and Kind of Blue in short order laid the groundwork for future explorations of Davis' work, especially in the last few years, a journey that has yielded a great deal of pleasure in following the many permutations of this master's incredible career.
There is so much to get into when it comes to this album, which was recorded in August 1969 and released eight months later. The solid rhythms laid down by bassists Dave Holland and Harvey Brooks, drummers Lenny White, Don Alias and Jack DeJohnette, and percussionists Alias and Jumma Santos are really essential, as are the grooves by keyboardists Chick Corea, Larry Young and Joe Zawinul, which swirl through and around the music in hypnotic ways. Wayne Shorter, a stalwart of the tenor, plays exclusively on the soprano sax in this recording and does a marvelous job.
But, perhaps the most notable sounds, outside of the leader's work, on this recording, because of their rare appearances in jazz generally at the time and the outstanding playing, are the bass clarinet of Bennie Maupin and guitarist John McLaughlin. Maupin's snaking and curling work are essential to establishing and maintaining the mood of the record and he probably has not received enough credit or attention for that. McLaughlin simply plays remarkably creative and interesting solos, free of grandstanding and attention seeking, but always displaying the restraint and sensitivity that so many technically adept guitarists lack.
As for Davis, "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" showcases his playing best and, while he was always stereotyped as a middle-register player whose use of emotion and space were more important than his supposed lack of speed and proficiency, he gets plenty of opportunity to show speed, agility, and upper-register playing that belies what many of his critics suggested otherwise. He is also exceptional on the title track and on Shorter's "Sanctuary."
It is also important to mention Zawinul's contribution as the writer of "Pharoah's Dance", even if, as was usually the case with Davis recordings, the leader could and did dramatically change the composition, and the major contributions of producer Teo Macero. Macero assumed greater importance in the electric period because of his assiduous and time-consuming work in editing, more than he had done in previous efforts with Davis in the 60s. The artistry involved was with Macero's ability to take continuously recorded tape from the studio and craft a series of edits in a way to make them appear seemless, or nearly so. The approach of intensive editing may not have always worked so well in other efforts, according to critics, but on Bitches Brew the editing as well as the use of echo, reverb and looping are remarkable. In his autobiography, Davis had tellingly little to say about Macero's involvement in production and elsewhere sometimes diminished his longtime associate's work, but the leader's comments on the liner notes to the Tribute to Jack Johnson album, which was released next after Bitches Brew reveals Davis' debt to the devotion Macero had to creating innovative and important work from the hours and hours of tape from the sessions.
Kind of Blue had been Davis' biggest seller previously, but Bitches Brew actually achieved gold record status (500,000 or more copies), which was the first time a jazz album achieved that pinnacle (though, again, to some it was a decline--in qualitative instead of quantitative terms.) Davis began performing at rock venues, like the Fillmore auditoriums in New York and San Francisco, as well as Carnegie Hall, drew younger white and black crowds and made mindblowing music through his "retirement" in 1975.
This blogger likes music from all eras of Davis' long career--from the Birth of the Cool to Aura and plenty in between and can just as easily listen to Sketches of Spain as Agharta and Milestones as On the Corner and Kind of Blue as Get Up With It. The personnel, instrumentation, and song structures may change, but the unceasing desire for change and the quality of the performances are almost always rewarding in navigating the journey through several decades of Miles Davis' musical explorations, even if Davis' overt need to maintain an audience and keep the cash coming in were obvious. If Bitches Brew was a sellout, it was the most experimental, creative and unlikeliest of hit records imaginable. Kudos to Davis if he could maintain musical integrity and sell albums at the same time--this does not happen all that often.
It's hard to say that Bitches Brew constitutes a favorite album from such a widely varied and extensive career, but it certainly was an important . . . (OK, what is a synonym for milestone?) . . . landmark. It still sounds fresh and inventive over forty years later.
The image above is from the longbox edition of The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, which is a 4-CD box that has stirred controversy for the inclusion of pieces recorded later in 1969 and early in 1970 from sessions not part of the album recordings, though it may be argued that the spirit of the record continued on to the later work. In any event, these boxes are usually for devoted fans or completists
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