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miles davis<br />
Miles Davis (left) with<br />
Bitches Brew producer<br />
Teo Macero.<br />
Don Hunstein/Sony Music Entertainment<br />
Miles or Teo or anyone knew what the outcome<br />
was going to be or the influence it would<br />
have on the future of music. I just knew it was<br />
an important recording.”<br />
Guitarist John McLaughlin also remembers<br />
those days well. “Like a lot of Miles’ work<br />
at that time, around 1969 and ’70, the titles<br />
of the tunes came later,” he says. “For sure<br />
nobody on those recordings knew the name of<br />
the album. That said, it was clear to me from<br />
the outset that Miles was changing the ‘rules.’<br />
My most important impression was that Miles<br />
didn’t really know what he wanted with this<br />
recording. What was very clear was that he<br />
knew exactly what he didn’t want. It’s for this<br />
reason that there was lots of experimentation<br />
going on in the studio. This entailed jamming<br />
in one way or another, with Miles ‘tweaking’<br />
all of us till he liked what was happening.<br />
And then we’d record and let it go wherever<br />
with all of us being free, which was what<br />
Miles wanted. At the same time we were keeping<br />
an eye on Miles, waiting for silent instructions,<br />
whether to play or shut up.”<br />
As for “John McLaughlin,” the title of one<br />
of the tunes on Bitches Brew, McLaughlin<br />
says, “Miles rarely had titles on the tunes in<br />
the studio, [so] I only discovered that he’d given<br />
me a tune when I bought the LP! I was more<br />
shocked than anyone, and very, very flattered.<br />
At the same time it was a humbling experience.<br />
Very strange.”<br />
Chick Corea’s memories are similar to<br />
McLaughlin’s. “Miles was definitely searching<br />
for a new form of communication,” Corea<br />
says. “He seemed to want at least a steady beat<br />
in the music—something that listeners could<br />
grasp onto. The quintet I was a part of and the<br />
great quintet just before, with Wayne [Shorter],<br />
Herbie [Hancock], Ron [Carter] and Tony<br />
[Williams], were high-art ensembles. They<br />
shared the technical factor of very sophisticated<br />
and impressionistic rhythms. I think Miles<br />
knew that this was difficult for audiences to be<br />
in rapport with. I think he also wanted to play<br />
for younger audiences.<br />
“One night,” Corea adds, “after playing the<br />
acoustic piano every show since I started with<br />
the band, Miles pointed me toward an electric<br />
piano that had been rented for the club we were<br />
playing. As I headed for the acoustic piano, he<br />
just pointed to the rented electric piano and<br />
said, ‘Play that.’ From that moment I never<br />
again played an acoustic piano in the band, in<br />
performance or in the studio. Soon after, he<br />
had Dave Holland playing electric bass as well.<br />
I think as cultures change, so do the forms of<br />
art and entertainment change. Miles was at the<br />
forefront of the changes occurring in music in<br />
those changeable ’60s and ’70s.”<br />
The addition of bass clarinet for Bitches<br />
Brew was more than a novel touch, signaling<br />
yet another change in Davis’ music. “It was my<br />
very good friend Jack DeJohnette who actually<br />
told Miles about me,” reed player Bennie<br />
Maupin recalls. “During that time, I was working<br />
with McCoy Tyner’s band. One night Miles<br />
came to hear us at Slug’s. From my days working<br />
with the great pianist Horace Silver, I was<br />
already seriously experimenting with the bass<br />
clarinet and using it more often in McCoy’s<br />
music. Shortly after that night, Miles called<br />
and asked me to be at Columbia Studios, and<br />
to bring that ‘funny horn.’ He and Wayne both<br />
guided me openly from their hearts and provided<br />
the perfect forum for my individual<br />
musical voice to emerge and be heard. Magic!”<br />
But Bitches Brew wouldn’t mean a thing if<br />
it didn’t have that spring, so to speak, into the<br />
future. Unlike much of what was produced during<br />
that transitional period in jazz—when rock<br />
elements were fused to jazz—Bitches Brew<br />
sounds anything but dated. And its impact has<br />
been felt by multiple generations.<br />
Bob Belden, a Grammy-winning co-producer<br />
for the 1998 reissue of Bitches Brew, said<br />
that the album “represents many levels of innovation.”<br />
He adds, “One level that is rarely discussed<br />
is the personal freedom Miles gained<br />
from the success of this recording. Freedom<br />
not only financially, but artistically. No longer<br />
was Miles bound to the written composition;<br />
he only needed a sketch—or suggestion—and<br />
the compositions would evolve from this open<br />
approach.<br />
“It was Harvey Brooks,” Belden continues,<br />
“who offhandedly explained to Miles how rock<br />
musicians made their own music of the day.<br />
Harvey said that, for the most part, the music<br />
that his bands created came from jam sessions,<br />
when they would find a common idea and<br />
develop this idea until it became a form. Teo<br />
and Miles took this idea and added the element<br />
of tape-editing. The result was a recreation of<br />
the jam-session vibe of early jazz using modern<br />
studio technology.”<br />
Collector’s Edition co-producer Michael<br />
Cuscuna explains what makes the set unique:<br />
“This box was different than any of the other<br />
Miles Davis box sets I did because it wasn’t<br />
something that was ‘the complete’ anything.<br />
It was done more editorially. I had done a<br />
Complete Bitches Brew Sessions box with<br />
Bob Belden a few years back, and that brought<br />
together all of the [original] double album plus<br />
all the subsequent sessions over the next few<br />
months with the same instrumentation and<br />
aesthetic. The content of this 40th anniversary<br />
box was chosen to illustrate the influence that<br />
Bitches Brew had on Miles and his music.<br />
“The first two discs are the music from the<br />
album plus some new alternate takes and all of<br />
the singles that Columbia released at the time by<br />
Miles,” Cuscuna continues. “The third CD and<br />
the DVD capture Miles live, performing material<br />
from Bitches Brew live. The DVD comes<br />
from a concert only a few months after the sessions,<br />
and the quintet takes that music out! It<br />
has morphed out of the grooves created on the<br />
record into something else entirely. Disc three<br />
is from a Tanglewood concert a year after the<br />
record dates, and the expanded band with Gary<br />
Bartz, Keith Jarrett and Airto Moreira plays the<br />
same material in a more rhythmic, earthbound<br />
groove, closer to the album but still very different.<br />
The music on Bitches Brew took on a life<br />
of its own and would constantly change in the<br />
hands of its creator. That essentially is what we<br />
were trying to show with this set.”<br />
Although he didn’t participate in the sessions,<br />
drummer Ngudu Chancler was on the<br />
scene at that time. “Bitches Brew impacted<br />
me as the beginning of the revolution in jazz<br />
that was the bridge between all of the existing<br />
52 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2011