• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Bitches Brew

markanini

Major Contributor
Joined
Feb 15, 2019
Messages
1,718
Likes
1,768
Location
Scania
The music isn't entirely live, basically a collage of spliced together takes. It was a rather innovative way to produce music at the time that probably made jazz purists furious. The titles track in particular has memorable themes and the pacing and transitioning is great and holds my interest.
 

iconoclast

Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2022
Messages
51
Likes
45
It hit me hard the very first time I listened to it. Absolutely legendary. Changed the entire jazz landscape like nothing else.
 

DMill

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Jan 9, 2022
Messages
890
Likes
1,259
Not a huge jazz fan. it’s pretty legendary in how great it is.
 

pablolie

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 8, 2021
Messages
2,022
Likes
3,318
Location
bay area, ca
It's pretty much universally acclaimed as an era-setting jazz album... whatever jazz is, not one has ever successfully defined it.

That said, it's not an album listen much to. Take me to the 60s, and I much prefer the brilliance of Bill Evans (reared in Miles' band) or some Coltrane (ditto). Or Wes Montgomery. I think some jazz albums go for dissonance etc for intellectual effect, and I am "OK, I get it, but it just gets a bit tiring". Coltrane also has albums like that. It exists to this day - I love some stuff from "The Bad Plus", but when they get over-jazz-intellectual they lose me out.

Guess I like melodic stuff. I am also very much into classical music, and the atonal stuff I will never be able to enjoy.
 

BJL

Active Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2022
Messages
193
Likes
193
After re discovering Bitches Brew and listening to it more recently, I have a few comments and question to this forum members.
As jazz is my favorite music genre, I also listen to other genre, but jazz, all kind of jazz, as been on top of my listening time for a good 15 years now, of course, Miles Davis music is part of what I listen to.
Comments
Bitches Brew, as never been, until recently, something I really liked. Even today, when I appreciate it very much, I am not even sure it is jazz. Music, yes, absolutely! Jazz?, not so sure.
It is one of those album, that first intrigued me without really feeling anything, I was not sure to what I was supposed to listen to.
Was I suppose to listen loud? not loud? And then, eventually, I started to like it, and eventually love it.
Today, I listen to it as a whole, as what the music make me feel, not at what the ( extraordinary ) musicians, and there is a lot of them, all star cast, are playing. To me, it is not about virtuosity, it is about the sum being everything and the parts being nothing. A lot like a classical piece, where the orchestra plays as one unit.

Questions
How did you acquire a taste for Bitches Brew, Love at first site or acquired taste?
Is it jazz?
Is a great sound system, speakers or headphones a pre requisite, to be able to grasp what an album like Bitches Brew bring to the table?
Those questions ...

I bought this when released in 1970, and I thought it was terrific at the time. I replaced the beat up LPs with the first CD remaster (the version supervised by Teo Macero), and more recently, as others have mentioned, the Sony SACD incorporating the original quad and a fine stereo remix. The music on this album fits right into much else going on musically in 1970. My favorite is a tie between the original stereo and the quad, maybe the quad having the edge.

Is it jazz? No, I do not believe this is jazz. It is rock, or if you prefer, fusion, or, as at the time many called it jazz-rock. My understanding is that Miles was deliberately incorporating funk and rock into his music (the fusion element, I suppose), and wanted to make the greatest rock album ever. This is why Miles found easy acceptance at rock venues (e.g. Black Beauty Live at the Fillmore West).

Is a great sound system a pre-requisite? Any decent sound system will do, of course, the better the sound quality, the better the experience.

In my opinion, Bitches Brew can best be understood as a collaboration between Miles Davis and Teo Macero, who edited everything together. A decent sound system allows for a better appreciation of Macero's masterful work with the source tapes. Someone else mentioned Big Fun and the great piece "Go Ahead John" - that piece is a spectacular example of what happens when a brilliant producer collaborates with a brilliant musician. The editing on Go Ahead John is exquisite, all the more remarkable for having been done entirely with razor blades and tape (as was BB), and analog noise gates and tape loops. Most of Miles incredible output between 1969 and 1975 was effectively a collaboration with Macero.
 

fredoamigo

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 11, 2018
Messages
600
Likes
987
Location
South East France
In my opinion, Bitches Brew can best be understood as a collaboration between Miles Davis and Teo Macero, who edited everything together. A decent sound system allows for a better appreciation of Macero's masterful work with the source tapes. Someone else mentioned Big Fun and the great piece "Go Ahead John" - that piece is a spectacular example of what happens when a brilliant producer collaborates with a brilliant musician. The editing on Go Ahead John is exquisite, all the more remarkable for having been done entirely with razor blades and tape (as was BB), and analog noise gates and tape loops. Most of Miles incredible output between 1969 and 1975 was effectively a collaboration with Macero.
It's 5 o'clock in the morning here, after reading your comment while drinking my coffee, I couldn't resist and turned on my system to listen to "Go Ahead John" especially since it's been a long time since I've listened to big fun..thanks man
 

bloodshoteyed

Major Contributor
Joined
Jul 31, 2020
Messages
4,774
Likes
20,957
Location
n/a
Your comment (which, I'd opine, is spot on) put me to mind of this (now) iconic photograph from Aleppo.

GettyImages-651238466-1-1024x698.jpg




that one hit on a whole nother level when i first saw it, it's been burned into my memory ever since... :(
 

SIY

Grand Contributor
Technical Expert
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
10,383
Likes
24,749
Location
Alfred, NY
I would argue that this is really more of a Teo Macero album.

Minority opinion: everything of Miles Davis that followed this was second rate. BB pretty much exhausted that facet of Miles's composing/playing. 2nd favorite Miles album for me (favorite was Birth of the Cool).
 

telemike

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2020
Messages
308
Likes
259
Jack Johnson was pretty awesome too. Miles was on fire with that solo on 1st track.

The Complete Sessions sets of BB and JJ really have some incredible takes
 

Vincent Kars

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Technical Expert
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
781
Likes
1,555
Is it jazz?
No, it is jazz-rock.
"Jazz ain't dead, it just smells funny" was indeed the status of jazz. High time to move on and try to reach a bigger audience.

Try Live-Evil. More or less in the same vain.
 

ribonucleic

Active Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2023
Messages
215
Likes
230
As a Miles Davis record, it’s tagged as Jazz in my music software. Beyond that, I don’t find “is it jazz?” a useful question. The man called it “Directions in Music” and that seems as much as words can convey about it.

As a listener, I find it less compelling than the really far-out shit he got into starting with On the Corner.
 

Multicore

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 6, 2021
Messages
1,673
Likes
1,766
Jack Johnson was pretty awesome too. Miles was on fire with that solo on 1st track.
Jack Johnson is a great record. So is On the Corner.

The Complete Sessions sets of BB and JJ really have some incredible takes
I totally swore off "complete sessions" after I heard the cocktail lounge jazz style version of In A Silent Way. That they finished recording that take is kinda embarrassing and Miles was right to scrap it, and it shoulda stayed that way.

Where John McLaughlin here says "Miles didn't like it," I assume he's referring to that recording that I also dislike and wish I had never heard.


McLaughlin's story here is very interesting. Miles was aiming for an approach to creating music using group improvisation. If you tell the players what to do then you reduce the space for improvisation. But you need to lead the band somehow.
 

Philbo King

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
May 30, 2022
Messages
669
Likes
871
After re discovering Bitches Brew and listening to it more recently, I have a few comments and question to this forum members.
As jazz is my favorite music genre, I also listen to other genre, but jazz, all kind of jazz, as been on top of my listening time for a good 15 years now, of course, Miles Davis music is part of what I listen to.
Comments
Bitches Brew, as never been, until recently, something I really liked. Even today, when I appreciate it very much, I am not even sure it is jazz. Music, yes, absolutely! Jazz?, not so sure.
It is one of those album, that first intrigued me without really feeling anything, I was not sure to what I was supposed to listen to.
Was I suppose to listen loud? not loud? And then, eventually, I started to like it, and eventually love it.
Today, I listen to it as a whole, as what the music make me feel, not at what the ( extraordinary ) musicians, and there is a lot of them, all star cast, are playing. To me, it is not about virtuosity, it is about the sum being everything and the parts being nothing. A lot like a classical piece, where the orchestra plays as one unit.

Questions
How did you acquire a taste for Bitches Brew, Love at first site or acquired taste?
Is it jazz?
Is a great sound system, speakers or headphones a pre requisite, to be able to grasp what an album like Bitches Brew bring to the table?
I thought it was ground breaking, an attempt to fuse bebop with (late 60s) rock. As such it was a noble experiment. But the amount of echo is sort of annoying after a while. I would have preferred a little discretion in its use (bring it in only when it adds something to the musicality).
 

BJL

Active Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2022
Messages
193
Likes
193
I totally swore off "complete sessions" after I heard the cocktail lounge jazz style version of In A Silent Way. That they finished recording that take is kinda embarrassing and Miles was right to scrap it, and it shoulda stayed that way.
This mirrors comments made by Teo Macero, who would not allow his name to be attached to the "complete sessions" series, and asserted that the albums should be left in the original sequence, with, at best, the outtakes appended.

Well, we can have the best of all possible worlds. I have some of the complete sessions, I ripped and resequenced to restore the running order of each album, and placed the outtakes and miscellany separately. I agree with Multicore on Silent Way sessions, to me, mostly weak, but others (BB, On the Corner, Quintet 65-68) have some terrific tracks, and have some tracks that were released in truncated form on Circle in the Round, Directions, Get Up With It, in full length versions as originall intended and produced by Macero.

With BB, I've noticed three versions in stereo; a CD with attribution to Teo Macero (1987 and subsequently reissued), the BB Complete version, which is a recreation from the multitracks and not done by Macero, and a third stereo version included in the Sony SACD hybrid disc. The Sony disc has the quad version from the original master tapes, as they also did with Live/Evil (another great quad release from original master tapes). The three stereo versions sound different and have some different track timings. Both Sony SACDs are still available, get them while you can!

Ben Ratliff, in the NY Times obit for Macero noted the following:

"Mr. Macero strongly believed that the finished versions of Davis’s LPs, with all their intricate splices and sequencing done on tape with a razor blade, in the days before digital editing were the work of art, the entire point of the exercise. He opposed the current practice of releasing boxed sets that include all the material recorded in the studio, including alternate and unreleased takes. Mr. Macero was not involved in Columbia’s extensive reissuing of Davis’s work for the label, in lavish boxed sets from the mid-’90s until last year." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/arts/music/22macero.html
 

Multicore

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 6, 2021
Messages
1,673
Likes
1,766
but others (BB, On the Corner, Quintet 65-68) have some terrific tracks, and have some tracks that were released in truncated form on Circle in the Round, Directions, Get Up With It, in full length versions as originall intended and produced by Macero
What do you suggest from On the Corner? The CS album on Amazon is nearly 7 hours long! That's a lot of Wah Wah pedaling.
 
Top Bottom