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Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, released in 1970, is one of the foremost jazz fusion recordings. Some even argue that fusion began with Bitches Brew, though others argue Davis' In A Silent Way is equally important.
Recorded mostly in three days (August 19 to 21, 1969) By incorporating electric instruments, such as electric piano, and by mostly rejecting traditional jazz rhythms in favor of a looser, funk music influenced improvisational style, Davis and his band changed jazz forever.
The 2 LP/CD set contains mostly very long songs, or jams that were largely written on the spot. Instead of the largely diatonic style of cool jazz, Bitches Brew often favored dissonance.
Some jazz fans and musicians regarded the album nearly as blasphemy: "Davis drew a line in the sand that some jazz fans have never crossed, or even forgiven Davis for drawing." In a 1997 interview, drummer Bobby Previte sums up his feelings about Bitches Brew thusly: "Well, it was groundbreaking, for one. How much groundbreaking music do you hear now? It was music that you had that feeling you never heard quite before. It came from another place. How much music do you hear now like that?"
Bitches Brew is often called the best-selling jazz record. Such sales figures have been disputed, but it was Davis' first gold record, selling more than half a million copies. However Davis had earlier 11 years earlier released "Kind of Blue", another groundbreaking record that has been cited as perhaps the best-selling jazz release.
(The original two disc vinyl album does not include a track titled "Feio".)
The Miles Davis recording, Bitches Brew might be described as a pulsating, mythic touchstone to a moment at the end of the turbulent 1960's in New York City, and the implosion of the center of the jazz universe. Davis had already spearheaded two major jazz movements--cool and modal jazz--and was about to instigate another major change
It is perhaps easy for today's audience to forget how astonishing it was in 1969 to have a major label--Columbia Records--release a major album by a important jazz artist with the term "bitches" in its title. The use of the word "bitches" on the album may be a factor in certain fans' and critics' dismissive or even hostile resposes to the record.
Some have criticised or insulted Bitches Brew by saying the album was more "rock" than "jazz," and that it was overly "commercial." These arguements were, in fact, effectively neutered, for David was explicitly incorporating elements of funk and rock--he was expecially fond of Jimi Hendrix--and was explicitly seeking a larger and often younger audience.
The Abdul Mati Klarwein painting featured on the cover--though striking and memorable--was perhaps an artifact of the "psychedelic" era, and demonstrates Davis' desire to reach a different audience; for example, Klarwein's work is very reminsicent of the cover art of Santana's (1970) Abraxas.
The "Who's Who" level of musicianship among the participants involved in this recording is indicative of the excellence demanded and the collaborative abilities Miles Davis. Attempts by some critics at characterizing this music as simply "outside" at recalls Duke Ellington's description of Davis as "the Picasso of jazz."
As was Davis' practice, he called musicians to the recording studio on very short notice. The musicians had little or no idea what they were to record. Once in the recording studio, the musicians were typically given only a few instructions: a tempo count, a few chords or a hint of melody, and suggestions as to mood or tone.
Davis liked to work this way, and though it forced musicians to pay very close attention to their own performances, to one another, and to his cues, which could change at any moment: In the quiter moments of "Bitches Brew," for example, Davis is audible, giving instructions to the musicians: snapping his fingers to indicate tempo, or, in his distinctive whisper, saying, "Keep it tight" or telling individuals when to solo.
The bulk of what would become Bitches Brew was recorded in three days.
Some might argue legendary Teo Macero, used the recording studio in radical new ways, especially in the title track and the opening track, Pharaoh's Dance. There were many special effects, like tape loops, tape delays, reverb chambers and echo effects. And, through intensive tape editing, Macero concocted many totally new musical structures that were later imitated by the band in live concerts. Macero, who has a classical education and was most likely inspired by the '30s and '40s musique concrete experiments, used tape editing as a form of arranging and composition. "Pharaoh's Dance" contains 19 edits - its famous stop-start opening is entirely constructed in the studio, using repeat loops of certain sections. Later on in the track there are several micro-edits: for example, a one-second-long fragment that first appears at 8:39 is repeated five times between 8:54 and 8:59. The title track contains 15 edits, again with several short tape loops of, in this case, five seconds (at 3:01, 3:07 and 3:12). Therefore, Bitches Brew not only became a controversial classic of musical innovation, it also became renowned for its pioneering use of studio technology."
Purists argued this extensive editing was sometimes controversial, and detractors argued that jazz should be "spontaneous."
Though Bitches Brew was in many ways revolutionary, perhaps its most important innovation was rhythmic.
In fact, the innovative harmonic and melodic explorations heard on Bitches Brew, coupled with the absence of familiar, accepted, and perhaps hackneyed bossa nova, swing or jazz-waltz rhythmic templates seems to be source of much of the malevolence directed toward the album on the part of its detractors
That there were no jazz standards on Bitches Brew; there were no "walking bass lines"-- a traditional, old-school "swing" reference benchmark--there was, in fact, no "swing" at all on Bitches Brew.
The essential jazz "swing" had been basically unchanged since the early 20th century. Bitches Brew ignored both "swing" and the more recent bossa nova, and instead, drew heavily on the nascant funk music of James Brown, Sly Stone, and others. Davis didn't simply borrow Brown or Stone's riffs, rather, he incororated funk in his expanded rhythm section as a vital element of his music.
Previous larger jazz ensembles--such as the big bands--based on tradition and had previously featured several trumpets or woodwinds playing as "sections", and supported by a rhythm section usually composed of piano, double bass and drums.
Bitches Brew, however, was it was unusual in jazz to feature several "rhythm section" instruments duplicated and playing live together. For example, two basses, two or even three drummers, or two piano players, all playing at the same time is in many ways the foundation of the entire ensemble recorded on Bitches Brew.
Also expanding the enhanced rhythm section ensemble on Bitches Brew are electric guitar, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone, and additional percussionists.
The solo voices heard most prominently on this album are the trumpet and the soprano saxophone, respectively of Miles and Wayne Shorter. Notable also is Bennie Maupin's ghostly bass clarinet, which was perhaps the first use of the instrument not heavily indebted to pioneer Eric Dolphy.
Also worth noting is the length of several peices on Bitches Brew. Only John Coltrane--a former Davis associate--had released such long recordings, where a single song would be played for twenty to forty minutes.
The technology of analog tape and disc mastering and its inherent recording time constraints (i.e.,bandwidth) had, in the late sixties expanded for the stereo, vinyl album and Bitches Brew reflects this. In it are found long form performances which encompass entire improvised suites with rubato sections, tempo changes or the long, slow crescendo more common to a symphonic orchestral piece or Indian raga form than the three-minute rock song.
That the Fender Rhodes electric piano, the electric bass were not yet recognized as legitimate parts of the instrumental nomenclature of modern American jazz at the time of Bitches Brew is indicative of how cutting-edge this album was in a world that witnessed man landing on the Moon the same year.
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