Published on May 27, 1998
Creating music definitely has its price. Especially in the case
of Miles Davis. Rap purists, indie purists have nothing on the
arrogance and the contempt of your typical jazz purist. And Miles
Davis paid the price in the late 60s because of this setup. With
one album,
Bitches Brew, he helped bring about an entirely new sound of
jazz:fusion. The result? Alienation from some of his closest
peers.
“You did
Birth Of The Cool,
Kind Of Blue, so what? you brought the entire structure of
jazz down. You pillaged a pristine landscape,” jazz purists said.
Even in today’s world, a
New York Times writer said Miles Davis was responsible for
bastardizing jazz.
Was it worth it? Davis’s friendship with Jimi Hendrix and the
rise of funk converged on
Bitches Brew. It did result in some, no, lots of
cheese-fusion jazz bands out there. It did bring in a new audience
to appreciate jazz. Somehting that many in the jazz community
didn’t appreciate. Think of it. Take your favorite pub, a pub that
gets very little traffic during the weekdays and you like it like
that. You’re sitting, you’re chilling with four or five mates with
a beer and all of a sudden, a swarm of people enter some have
enthusiastic faces others are just there. That’s how many in the
jazz community felt.
The only thing that jazz patrons can do is make room. Because
Bitches Brew is a landmark album that elevated rock and jazz
as we know it today. Spread out over two discs, Davis eases the
listener into dark, new and exciting territory. The first two
epics, “Pharaoh’s Dance” and “Bitches Brew” contain many of the
time change structures that Davis perfected in the works before the
fusion stage of his career. John McLaughlin introduces some
restrained guitar work while Harvey Brooks gives a powerful r&b
rhythm of his Fender bass.
Call it Dadaism, call it a mess but the first side of
Bitches Brew is a dazzling display of free form jazz and
tight rhythms. Just as Davis hits a high note, all of the
instruments seem to be going in different directions. Then, slowly
the bass and guitar take over, Davis plays off of those beats and a
recognized rhythm is re-established.
It’s amazing looking at the release date for this record. In the
1990s, where rap, electronica, punk and grunge have all surfaced
since the 1969 release of
Bitches Brew, this album has never sounded dated at all.
Quite the opposite. In today’s standards, it seems to be a few
years ahead of its time. No wonder so many people dogged it as
unlistenable in the late 1960s.
The second half of
Bitches Brew is a surrender to funk. The throbbing bass of
“Spanish Key” keeps you entranced throughout the 17 minute-long
song. Another notable player, Chick Corea on the electric piano,
keeps things moving like a Parliament album. The party comes to a
peak with the awesome “Miles Runs The Voodoo Down”.
The album ends with “Sanctuary”, a sober ending to an intense
listening experience that must be experienced again and again to
get
Bitches Brew to even sink in. In that song, Davis’s trumpet
rings louder and more clear on some of the more cluttered tracks on
the album. In that song, you hear his joy, anger and sadness pour
out.
Bitches Brew is one of those few CDs that you have a
perverse sense of owning. Not perverse as in owning a Marilyn
Manson or Motley Crue CD. Both of those CDs were ones that you were
not supposed to have but in ten years time will and are considered
to be tame. Remember when
Theatre Of Pain was supposed to be one of those tapes where
your parents would start to worry about you? No,
Bitches Brew did something far more forbidden. It took a
music form and elevated it to a higher level. As a result, many
fans of the old school did what they could to undo the damage. The
more open-minded trusted Davis’s visionary work. And as you can see
today, we are immeasureably for the better. Non-jazz fans need not
look further than Radiohead’s
OK Computer to see the results of Davis’s work.