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miles davis
gave them enough room, he’d get fantastic
music,” bassist Dave Holland commented to
this writer back in 2001. “He knew if you do
that, musicians come up with their best work.
He never said much about what the music
should be; he mostly created a setting and
asked you to figure out what you were supposed
to do. He had enough trust in you to do
that. For example, he’d leave the stage after
he finished his short solo, which was another
sign of his generosity; it was never about
Miles only.
“Of course, anytime he was on the stage,
you couldn’t take your eyes off him.”
If you took your eyes off Miles Davis, you
missed a lot. The man was a font of musical
wisdom and experience. Everyone who came
in contact with him realized that. He may have
earned his stripes with Charlie Parker, but he
still had to show up and get the job done after
he left Bird to form his own music, bands
and concepts. In August 1949, two decades
before the recording of Bitches Brew, he was
starting to experiment with large ensembles,
which resulted in the landmark Birth Of The
Cool sessions. Fast-forward 10 more years to
August 1959. A few months earlier, Davis had
just finished laying down music for what would
become an even more historic recording, Kind
Of Blue. Only now he was having to deal with
the cops and getting hassled outside New
York’s Birdland, where he was performing but
taking a cigarette break. The results A conflict
with the police, who, Davis later said, “beat me
on the head like a tom-tom.” From the sublime
to the ridiculous, Davis had to contend with
racism even as he continued to put forth some
of the greatest music ever recorded—not only
Kind Of Blue but the also the large-ensemble
works Miles Ahead and Porgy And Bess with
soulmate/collaborator Gil Evans.
Fast-forward another 10 years and what’s
happened Readers of DownBeat back then
knew a lot had happened—to Miles Davis, to
jazz and to America. The DownBeat Readers
Poll results reflected how Davis’ career was
being followed. And his music continued to
be a reflection of it all: Filles De Kilimanjaro
(1968), In A Silent Way (1969) and Bitches
Brew (1969), for starters.
Remembering those fruitful times, when
his piano chair (soon to become a keyboard
chair) was like a setting for a game of musical
chairs, Davis told this writer back in 1988:
“Say I’m a piano player ... so if I had any
sense at all, I would have to go with Herbie
[Hancock], Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett. Herbie
can’t play like Keith, and Chick can’t play like
Keith. Nobody plays like Keith. Chick can’t
play like Herbie, but Herbie might be able to
play like Chick; I doubt it because Chick plays
like he would play drums.” All of these musicians
were important, essential members of the
Bitches Brew experience.
Likewise, as he told Howard Mandel for
DownBeat in 1984, a good 15 years after
Bitches Brew: “I used to have big arguments
with Dave Holland and Chick about electric
pianos and stuff, but how many years ago was
that And you can see what happened.”
Indeed. The world Davis had inhabited
with the likes of Red Garland, Bill Evans and
Wynton Kelly, and those heady days when
he got his head beat in by a stupid New York
cop had radically changed, if only musically.
“The session was a lesson in
a new musical methodology
that transcended any music
I had ever played before. No
form, no charts. It was all
spontaneous. [We followed]
Miles’ conducting.”
—Harvey Brooks
The difference between everything that came
before the Bitches Brew era of the late 1960s
and what came afterward can be comprehended
through, among other things, one instrumental
change in Davis’ music. Because he was
no longer using just one keyboardist, Bitches
Brew, like In A Silent Way earlier that year,
sported a tripling up of artists at that position.
Joining Corea again (with Hancock gone after
In A Silent Way) was Joe Zawinul along with
Larry Young. Dig it: Three keyboardists, extra
drummers and percussion, an electric guitarist,
reed players and an extra bassist—one who was
playing a Fender and coming from a rock and
studio-recording background. For Davis, it was
a return to large ensembles.
“I met Miles through Teo [Macero],” that
“extra” bassist, Harvey Brooks, remembers.
“We were both producers at Columbia Records.
Two events connected me with Miles for the
Bitches Brew sessions. One was meeting Teo,
and the other was a recommendation by Jack
DeJohnette, who heard me play on an album
by Eric Mercury entitled Electric Black Man.
Teo asked me if I wanted to do this demo session
for Miles’ wife, Betty [Mabry]. The session
was recorded May 20, 1969, at Columbia
Studio B, with John McLaughlin, Larry Young
and Mitch Mitchell, with Miles producing.
After the session, Miles asked me do some sessions
he had coming up, which turned out to be
Bitches Brew.
“The session,” Brooks continued, “was a
lesson in a new musical methodology that transcended
any music I had ever played before. No
form, no charts. We followed the conductor. It
was all spontaneous, with very little thought
except to follow Miles’ conducting. The one
constant was the motion of the rhythm. Miles
was creating space and filling it with sound.
There were no charts, or specific directions;
maybe an occasional tone center. I was in new
territory for an r&b, folk, rock and blues musician.…
The most amazing part was the way
Miles and Teo edited what we did to create
structure out of creative chaos. I’m still digesting
what went down on those sessions.”
“You write to establish the mood,” Davis
told Dan Morgenstern for DownBeat back
when Bitches Brew was fresh in the record
shops. That’s what was going on in the studio
with pieces to be named later (for example,
“Bitches Brew” and “Miles Runs The Voodoo
Down”). “That’s all you need,” Davis stated.
“Then it can go on for hours. If you complete
anything, you play it, and it’s finished. Once
you resolve it, there’s nothing more to it. But
when it’s open, you can suspend it.”
“For me, this was a life-changing event,”
explains drummer Lenny White, who recalls
playing with Davis as though it were yesterday.
“Miles called the session for 10 a.m. I
was there at 9:30. The cleaning lady let me in.
While everyone was coming in and setting up,
I started to loosen up. Miles comes in the control
room and over the talk-back he says [to
DeJohnette], ‘Hey Jack, tell that young drummer
to shut up.’ Now I’m on pins and needles.
“We all set up in a semi-circle,” White goes
on to say, “drums together, percussion together,
basses, keyboards, guitar, bass clarinet, saxophone
and Miles. It was kind of like a small
orchestra. Miles would snap his fingers to start
a groove and then point to a soloist to play.
With John [McLaughlin], Wayne [Shorter] and
Bennie [Maupin], they soloed with us accompanying
them, but when Miles let the keyboards,
drums, or basses play, it was the whole
section. Miles said to me, ‘Let Jack play the
basic rhythm and you add spice like a big pot
of brew.’ I wanted it to sound like one drummer
with eight arms.”
And DeJohnette did just that, embracing
this brave new world of studio recording. “The
concept of going into the studio for weeks at a
time came from the rock world,” DeJohnette
recalls, “and Miles was probably the first jazz
artist to do that. Except he was an improviser
and creator of the highest level. It was like a
lab where we were all part of the experiment,
with the help of Teo Macero. I don’t think
50 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2011