My dear Japanese friends
When I'm listening to some "magic moments" from Miles' Bitches Brew or other recordings live or in studio from Miles' Jazz-rock golden era, I get the idea that's a special gift comin' from...ten years after, ...miles away...comin' from eight miles high and ,,, sending me eight miles high!!!
I had this impression when it came out, years later, ten years ago and...now!
It was like an ideal blending, meeting, marriage of composition and imagination, of space and rhythm, of colours and transparency, of black and white, of harmony and silence, of exploration of "3D" in "instant" music.
Even before introducing Electricity and rock suggestions in Miles' music, Miles Davis's quintet featuring drummer Tony Williams, bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock and tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter had pioneered a sound that was primarily just that: "sound"!
I like to focus on this "sound" element that was quite new for jazz and that in next Miles' works, especially "Bitches' Brew". "adding space" found in "sound and space" a brand new territory for jazz, making jazz-rock one of most important and probably the most unpredictable if not the most adventurous and risky moment in the history of jazz.
1968's album "Miles in the Sky" is the first of Davis' albums to
incorporate electric instruments, with Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter playing electric piano and bass guitar respectively on the track "Stuff," and George Benson added on electric guitar to the quintet for "Paraphernalia."
1968 saw the appearance of other Davis' explorations into the use of electric instruments with pianist Chick Corea and bassist Dave Holland with "Filles de Kilimandiaro" and while Tony Williams was creating another incredible band "lifetime", Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter departed the quintet. this last one by not being interested at the time in Davis' new direction.
Compositionally, these albums are on the same wavelength, including sharing a trademark of the purest high quality.
In 1969, Davis introduced the full-blown electric instrument approach to jazz with "In a Silent Way", which can really be considered as Davis's first jazz-rock album.
"in a silent way" is composed of two side-long suites, these are the results of heavy editing by producer Teo Macero (as later on Bitches' Brew): The serene mood, quiet atmosphere of this album will be also quite influential upon the development of ambient music.
The line-up was absolute marvellously as It featured musicians who would all go on to spread jazz-rock with their own groups in the 1970s: Shorter, Hancock, Corea, pianist Josef Zawinul, guitarist John McLaughlin, Holland, and Tony Williams.
Tony Williams quit Davis to form his own fusion band soon after, and over the course of three memorable days in August Davis recorded the sessions that would be released as the album Bitches Brew in 1970.
In addition to the previous musicians, the sessions included Bennie Maupin on bass clarinet, Larry Young on electric piano, Harvey Brooks on bass guitar, percussionists Lenny White, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Don Alias, and Juma Santos on percussions.
With "Bitches Brew" Miles Davis abandoned absolutely traditional jazz in favor of a style of improvisation more typical of rock, for its natural freedom, in some ways inspired by post-psychedelic-jam acts in San Francisco in those days, with emphasis on the backbeat.
A note on "back beat": in music the back beat is a term applied to the beats 2 and 4 in a 4/4 bar or a 12/8 bar as opposed to the odd downbeat, (quarter beat number 1, when you count it). In a simple 4/4 rhythm, 1 2 3 4, the 1st beat is the downbeat. Generally (but not absolutely), in rock, R & B, in certain Pop oriented song, backbeat are often accented.
"Bitches Brew" gave Davis a gold record, being the most selling jazz album till today, and created different feelings, including consternation within the 2traditional" jazz community and, that, in my opinion, is unbelievable and this "state" remains to this day!!!
Many critics and musicians didn't agree with Davis after his forays into the "electricity" in many sense, but... a genius that chooses to risk is even more genius than ever.
Davis would continue to work in the genre until his temporary retirement in 1975, releasing important albums like A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Live-Evil, Live at Fillmore, In Concert, On the Corner, Dark Magus, Agharta, and Pangaea.
And also sessions from this period were fashioned by producer Macero and Davis into the compilation albums Big Fun and Get Up With It.
Since the earliest experiments with replacing the tuba with the double bass and with removing the piano from the rhythm section, the changes in the rhythm section had reverberated so wildly and were quite important in creating entire new "jazz-rock lands".
One of the biggest regret in the recent decades has been the loss of the opportunity of the birth of a great new band (and world or I could say a brand new...galaxy) that would have seen the musical meeting in a band of Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis as many voices were around this subject. ...and one of my favorite Hammond player, Larry Young, the Coltrane of the Hammond, had to be the 3rd star in the "unit". Can you imagine it?
"Bitches Brew" was a rich double album which really represents a turning point in the history of jazz music, of rock music, of jazz-rock, of MUSIC!
It is the perfect synthesis between jazz and rock for long improvised pieces. The term "jazz rock" was consolidated. The genre, characterized by an extreme decomposition of the tempo, providing more and more sophisticated, complex rhythms sections, a great tendency for virtuoso instrumentals, an approach for new technologies (with the launch of electronic instruments as the electric piano, synth), percussion materials and modulated, amplified sounds thanks to electronic effects. Among other artists who belong to this modern jazz tendency we can quote:
When Davis fused jazz with rock rhythm and soul melody (and even dissonance) in his visions of "space and colours" on Bitches Brew (1969), Davis definitely legitimized ulteriorly the new style, "jazz-rock", making it "History".
Stay happy, my friends
Beppe
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