Rating:
Genre:
Jazz
Release Date: 06/08/1999
Run Time: 105:43
Thought by many to be the most revolutionary album in
jazz history, having virtually created the genre known as
jazz-rock fusion (for better or worse) and being the
jazz album to most influence
rock and
funk musicians,
Bitches Brew is, by its very nature, mercurial. The original double LP included only six cuts and featured up to 12 musicians at any given time, most of whom would go on to be high-level players in their own right:
Joe Zawinul,
Wayne Shorter,
Airto,
John McLaughlin,
Chick Corea,
Jack DeJohnette,
Dave Holland,
Don Alias,
Benny Maupin,
Larry Young,
Lenny White, and others. Originally thought to be a series of long jams locked into grooves around one or two keyboard, bass, or guitar figures,
Bitches Brew is anything but. Producer
Teo Macero had as much to do with the end product on
Bitches Brew as
Davis.
Macero and
Davis assembled, from splice to splice, section to section, much of the music recorded over three days in August 1969. First, there's the slow,
modal, opening grooves of
"Pharaoh's Dance," with its slippery trumpet lines to
McLaughlin's snaky guitar figures skirting the edge of the rhythm section and
Don Alias' conga slipping through the middle. The keyboards of
Corea and
Zawinul create a haunting, riffing groove echoed and accented by the two basses of
Harvey Brooks and
Dave Holland. The title cut was originally composed as a five-part suite, though only three were used. Here the keyboards punch through the mix, big chords and distorted harmonics ring up a racket for
Davis to solo over rhythmically outside the mode.
McLaughlin is comping on fat chords, creating the groove, and the bass and drums carry the rest for a small taste of deep-voodoo
funk. Side three opens with
McLaughlin and
Davis trading funky fours and eights over the lock-step groove of hypnotic proportion that is
"Spanish Key." Zawinul's trademark melodic sensibility provides a kind of chorus for
Corea to flat around, and the congas and drummers working in complement
against the basslines. This nearly segues into the four-and-a-half minute
"John McLaughlin," with its signature organ mode and arpeggiated
blues guitar runs. The end of
Bitches Brew, signified by the stellar
"Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," echoes the influence of
Jimi Hendrix; with its chuck-and-slip chords and lead figures and
Davis playing a ghostly melody through the shimmering funkiness of the rhythm section, it literally dances and becomes increasingly more chaotic until about nine minutes in, where it falls apart. Yet one doesn't know it until near the end, when it simmers down into smoke-and-ice fog once more. The disc closes with
"Sanctuary," a previously recorded
Davis tune that is completely redone here as an electric moody
ballad reworked for this band, but keeping enough of its
modal integrity to be outside the rest of
Bitches Brew's retinue. The CD reissue adds
"Feio," a track recorded early in 1970 with the same band. Unreleased -- except on the box set of the complete sessions --
"Feio" has more in common with the exploratory music of the previous August than with later, more structured
Davis music in the
jazz-rock vein. A three-note bass vamp centers the entire thing as three different modes entwine one another, seeking a groove to bolt onto. It never finds it, but becomes its own nocturnal beast, offering ethereal dark tones and textures to slide the album out the door on. Thus
Bitches Brew retains its freshness and mystery long after its original issue.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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