Miles Davis – Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Legacy Edition

This brew tastes as good as it ever did. And regarding the stylistic and cultural changes that have ensued since late ’69, what might have once sounded scary should seem almost accessible. To listeners who have absorbed progressive rock, world music, trip-hop and the ambient dreamscapes that drugs and technology have helped create, this experience might impart the shock of recognition: this is the primordial stew that all of these advancements oozed out of. (For the full and unfettered experience, you need to acquire the box set that includes the complete Bitches Brew sessions, which was released several years back.)

Miles was clever enough to understand the new possibilities being made possible by James Brown, as well as Sly Stone and especially Jimi Hendrix. Miles, always trusting his ever-keen instincts, incorporated some of this freedom into his approach; he just happened to have the biggest and boldest freak flag, and as such he was able—and obliged—to fly it higher than anyone else. In the process he dragged jazz music, kicking and screeching, into the ‘70s—and beyond.

The one-two punch of live material bookend this material brilliantly, and are both worthy additions to your collection. The DVD, filmed during a concert in Copenhagen on November 4, 1969 (about five months before Bitches Brew was officially unleashed), previews what is just around the corner. It’s not unlike a jazz Altamont; it signals the end of an amazing decade but the only casualty captured on tape is convention. The performance, lasting just over an hour, is one continuous flow of music with songs spilling over and into one another. The curtain opens and the band is already playing: it is almost unreal how unvarnished live acts (especially jazz) were back then—no dry ice, no pyrotechnics, no fake heroics or dubbed in embellishment; it’s just a live jam. The crowd is quiet, respectful, and almost entirely white. On most of the selections Wayne Shorter functions as a sort of chaser to Miles’s 180 Proof solos, restoring a semblance of collected calm after The Sorcerer’s short blasts of piss and vinegar. Jack DeJohnette maintains a pulsating beat, sounding like a slightly more muscular Tony Williams. If it’s possible for a man with a beard to have a baby face, it is the young Dave Holland, who suffuses restraint behind his upright bass. On the front line, Chick Corea fills out the contours in between Miles’s focused and powerful runs. Every time Shorter drops in his soprano cascades with placid, almost cerebral intensity, his eyes shut tight in composed concentration. It is a delight to have access to this footage.