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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

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