MILES DAVIS — Bitches Brew (review)

MILES DAVIS — Bitches Brew album cover Album · 1970 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
MilesBeyond
I can still remember where I was when I first "got" Bitches Brew. I'd gone to my parents' house for Christmas and was spending a quiet evening on my own listening to music, when the track Miles Runs the Voodoo Down came on. I'd tried giving the album a few listens before but never really enjoyed it - until now. Something inside me clicked. The music had a sort of raw, chaotic energy that spoke to me on a powerful level. It was the first music I'd heard in a long time that sounded truly alive.

When I first heard Bitches Brew, I was a little surprised: For such a popular album, I found it remarkably obtuse. Understand when you go into this album that this isn't Kind of Blue with guitar. This is a raw experiment in sonic energy; nothing like it has existed before or since. It took me a couple of listens, but after a while I could break things down into solos and interludes, and then I began to truly appreciate the beauty of it. This was Miles allowing musicians the freedom to express themselves however they desired, in loose compositions in a style unheard of, and it changed the face of jazz - and, to an extent, rock - forever.

I won't go through on a track-by-track basis because I feel as though that would be missing the point. The tracks aren't "songs" or even "compositions" in the traditional sense as much as they're platforms for ideas. A brief melodic or rhythmic fragment would be all that was given, then Miles would conduct the band as they expand on it and transform it into something else entirely. You really can't hope to understand it until you've heard it.

Bitches Brew is not an album for the faint-hearted. If you find yourself intimidated, I'd recommend starting with the shorter tracks on the second disk. John McLaughlin, Sanctuary, and the aforementioned Voodoo are good introductions before you tackle the longer jams. Regardless, it is an essential album for any jazz fan: Love it or hate it, it was the conquest of a new world, and something that needs to be listened to and digested by anyone who claims to be a listener of jazz music.
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