Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew Turns 50: Celebrate the Funk-Jazz-Psych-Rock Masterpiece

I shouldn’t have to tell you that Miles Davis’ Bitch­es Brew, released fifty years ago this month, is a ground­break­ing record. The funk-jazz-psych-rock mas­ter­piece has been hand­ed that award in “best of” lists for half a cen­tu­ry. “Bitch­es Brew is NOT LIKE OTHER records of its time, or any oth­er time,” Rick Frys­tak announced emphat­i­cal­ly on the Amoe­ba Records blog last year, on the 50th anniver­sary of the album’s 1969 “hatch­ing” onstage and in the stu­dio. How could it be oth­er­wise?

Davis “gave his band very lit­tle instruc­tion” about what to do, bassist and Jazz Night in Amer­i­ca host Chris­t­ian McBride tells NPR’s Audie Cor­nish. “Miles might come in with sheet music with, like, four bars. And then you just, do what you do.”

Or as gui­tarist John McLaugh­lin remem­bers it, in the clip above from The Miles Davis Sto­ry, “I don’t think even Miles had a clear idea of what he want­ed to do. But he was a man of such impec­ca­ble intu­ition that the moment that thing hap­pened, he knew it. He said, ‘that’s it.’”

“What got record­ed was the process,” says bassist Dave Hol­land, of fig­ur­ing out, for exam­ple, how to make three key­boards at once work. Author and Miles Davis schol­ar Paul Tin­gen tones down the idea that the band made it all up on the spot. “Three of the pieces had already been bro­ken in dur­ing live con­certs,” he writes, such as the live clip of “Bitch­es Brew” in Copen­hagen, 1969, above. And many of the musi­cians did get to rehearse before the stu­dio ses­sions.

But dur­ing much of the album’s mak­ing, Miles “brought in these musi­cal sketch­es that nobody had seen,” Davis him­self says, and the band, fea­tur­ing 13 musi­cians in total, found their way. Tin­gen writes:

On the third day the rhythm sec­tion con­sist­ed of as many as 11 play­ers: three key­boardists, elec­tric gui­tar, two bass­es, four drummers/percussionists and a bass clar­inet. Miles had pulled out the stops in his search for a heav­ier bot­tom end.

The album’s heav­i­ness, Davis’ tape echo, and McLaugh­lin’s squeal­ing, dis­tort­ed gui­tar turned off many jaz­zheads. “A lot of peo­ple felt that he was an artis­tic trai­tor,” McBride explains. “But I think that there were a num­ber of col­lege kids who were lis­ten­ing to pro­gres­sive rock [and] soul music who absolute­ly loved this record.” Davis was booked to open for the Grate­ful Dead, Neil Young, and the Steve Miller Band. A new gen­er­a­tion was turned on to jazz almost overnight.

After Bitch­es Brew, jazz kept fus­ing with rock instru­men­ta­tion and over­drive, “from Chick Corea with Return to For­ev­er and Wayne Short­er with Weath­er Report to Her­bie Han­cock with The Headhunters”—and, of course, McLaughlin’s Mahav­ish­nu Orches­tra. As Coltrane’s exper­i­men­tal 60s records had done, Davis’ bedrock fusion album freed rock from its for­mu­las, giv­ing it space to spread out and explore. Even Radio­head cit­ed it as an influ­ence on their ground­break­ing 1997 Ok Com­put­er. “It was build­ing some­thing up and watch­ing it fall apart,” says Thom Yorke, “that’s the beau­ty of it.”

The album’s ini­tial rejec­tion in jazz cir­cles didn’t last, as any­one famil­iar with the music’s direc­tion knows. Davis deter­mined its course in the 70s (as cov­er artist Mati Kar­wein deter­mined its look). “I’m not sure if jazz ever got unplugged,” says McBride, and influ­en­tial con­tem­po­rary jazz fusion­ists like Kamasi Wash­ing­ton, Thun­der­cat, and The Comet is Com­ing prove his point. Fifty years ago, the ground was bro­ken for exper­i­men­tal elec­tric jazz, and musi­cians are still build­ing on Miles’ Bitch­es Brew intu­itions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Miles Davis Icon­ic 1959 Album Kind of Blue Turns 60: Revis­it the Album That Changed Amer­i­can Music

Hear a 65-Hour, Chrono­log­i­cal Playlist of Miles Davis’ Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Jazz Albums

Her­bie Han­cock Explains the Big Les­son He Learned From Miles Davis: Every Mis­take in Music, as in Life, Is an Oppor­tu­ni­ty

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.