Bitches Brew is the hole. Now get lost.

“The moment where I began to feel that something really extraordinary was happening – that something was really breaking open – was Bitches Brew.” – John McLaughlin

John Coltrane: trumpet

Wayne Shorter: soprano saxophone

Chick Corea, Larry Young, Joe Zawinul: keys

Dave Holland: double bass

Don Alias: congas

Jack DeJohnette, Lenny White: drums

Airto Moreira, Jim Riley: percussion

Bennie Maupin: bass clarinet

John McLaughlin: guitar

Harvey Brooks: bass guitar

produced by Teo Macero

art by Mati Klarwein

On November 3rd, 1969, producer Teo Macero sent out a memo to Columbia execs about the new Miles Davis album. It’s a single LP called "Listen to This," with only two songs on it.

Eleven days later, Teo sent the second memo:

It would go down as one of the most famous memos in music history. Welcome to the deep, dark hole of Bitches Brew.

If you were to take any one of Miles Davis’s albums – Birth of the Cool, Milestones, Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, In A Silent Way – and delete them from music history, you wouldn’t just be fucking up jazz history. You’d befucking up rock-and-roll history.

Miles’s connection to rock goes back way before his fusion arc. Sketches of Spain inspired Grace Slick to write “White Rabbit” (don’t believe me? Listen to the original arrangement.) Miles’s groups springboarded the careers of countless greats; most notably John Coltrane’s. Without him, The Byrds’s “Eight Miles High” and all subsequent psych rock simply wouldn’t have existed.

But come the late 1960s, Miles noticed the young white groups on Columbia were getting preferential treatment to the label’s jazz acts. The winds were changing. In his book, he remembered, “...jazz music seemed to be withering on the vine, in record sales and live performances. It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t sell out crowds wherever I played...we played a lot of half-empty clubs in 1969. That told me something.” Where Kind of Blue sold hundreds of thousands of copies alone, Miles’s mid-’60s stretch only soldaround 50,000 copies per album. Columbia wasn’t a fan of this, nor what was effectively an infinite money hack in Miles’s contract. He could get advances against royalties earned. Whenever he needed cash, he could just call up Columbia and get an advance. The label felt Miles wasn’t selling enough records to warrant this privilege – but it’s not like they could do anything about it.

Later,

“...I started realizing that most rock musicians didn’t know anything about music...I figured if they could do it – sell all those records without knowing what they were really doing – I could do it too, only better.”

quoted from: Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography, 2011 ed.

Miles’s sonic shift wasn’t a cash grab, though. It was authentic to his taste: he dug Sly and the Family Stone, the Electric Flag, even the Fifth Dimension! He was a sponge. Like any artist, he picked up influences from those around him. Producer Teo Macero was a huge influence. His resume is nuts: Mingus Ah Um AND Time Out, on top of like all of Miles’s Columbia output. Teo got Miles hip to Edgar Varese; he knew him from Julliard. He also got Miles hip to electric equipment. Teo gave Miles’s group their first two Fender Rhodeses...Chick Corea somehow broke them both. We can’t count out the influence of Miles’s wife Betty Davis. (Or ex-wife.) A funk icon in her own rite, Betty was 18 years younger than Miles. She got him dressing in African-inspired clothing and took him to new clubs like Ungano’s; where he saw that infamous Stooges gig where Iggy slammed his dick on the amp! Miles had two girlfriends at the same time after Betty. Both were hip with the times, and quite spiritual. Carlos Santana thinks the Bitches Brew title is in reference to these two witchy women.

There’s the Jimi Hendrix of it all. Miles really wanted to work with him. He was introduced to Jimi’s playing through John McLaughlin. “Miles had never seen (Jimi,)” John described to The Guardian. “So, I took him to this art movie theatre downtown to see the film Monterey Pop where Jimi ended by squirting lighter fluid on his guitar, setting it on fire. Miles was next to me saying, ‘Fuuck!’ He was enchanted.”

And of course, there were the drugs. In interview with Chris Gertges in 1993, Bitches Brew cover artist Mati Klarwein described visiting Miles’s 77th Street bachelor pad...and seeing an eight-inch bowl full of cocaine just chilling on the table!

These sonic, personal, and environmental shifts Miles experienced aligned with his changing recording methods. Beginning in 1967, he was taking live recordings and cutting the breaks between songs to make one long medley. Fine. But bringing it into the studio with “Circle In The Round”? Now that was blasphemous. Columbia didn’t release it for twelve years, but you can hear edited stuff like this on his 1968 LP Miles in the Sky. With Filles de Kilamanjaro, the “fusion” sound began. When it came time to record the next, Miles brought his Filles group into the studio, plus John McLaughlin and Cannonball Adderley alum Joe Zawinul.

Now, recording didn’t stop and start. The band did. As producer Ted Macero explained, “Everything that’s done in the studio is recorded, so you’ve got a fantastic collection of everything done in the studio...I just pull out what I want and copy what I want, and then the original goes back into the vaults untouched. So whoever doesn’t like what I did, 20 years from now they can go back and redo it.”

Predictably, people did not like it. Martin Williams for the New York Times alleged a “faulty” edit on In A Silent Way’s title track “inadvertently” repeated a stretch of music! Miles’s obvious edits plus the sonic nod to rock-and-roll was cataclysmic.

The Bitches Brew group morphed together through the “lost quintet;” active in the six months after Silent Way.Their set list included muscular, rock-edged interpretations of Spanish Key, Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, and “second great quartet”-era composition Sanctuary. There’s a lot more guys in the fray now: keyboardist Larry Young and bassist Harvey Brooks helped Miles record Betty Davis’s first album. Jack DeJohnette replaced drummer Tony Williams, he had “a certain deep groove” Miles liked. Jack recommended bass clarinetist Bennie Maupin. Lenny White was the youngest guy here, he was only 19! He was recommendedto Miles by saxophonist Jackie McLean. Tony Williams introduced Miles to Don Alias, who brought his buddy Jim Riley in. Airto played in Cannonball Adderley’s band with Joe Zawinul. When all was said and done, the Bitches Brew studio group swelled to a whopping THIRTEEN guys: among them three keyboardists, two bassists, and four drummers/percussionists. Columbia Studio B was booked for August 19th, 20th, and 21st, 1969. It’s crazy to think that the day after Woodstock wrapped, Miles Davis and his guys started recording Bitches Brew. Though nine hours of material were recorded, 94 minutes made it onto the record. A lot of changes happened between August and its late March release date: Teo cut stuff up, rearranged things, repeated sections. He used delay, echo, and reverb chambers. He used the studio as an instrument. It was creation after creation. It was, in a way, sampling.

This is going to be a different review. For one, jazz is some technical shit, and I am not a musician! I know when key changes happen, when meter changes, but I don’t always know what it’s changing to and from. So I will only be referencing super-basic technical stuff when I must. The specifics will come from George Grella Jr.’s 33 1/3 installment on this album. I’ll also be mentioning time stamps 100% more than usual. We don’t have my usual markers of when things happen in songs, like lyrics or changes from verse to chorus. Having time stamps will be helpful for you viewer to know what I’m hearing; especially with all the edits happening.

Going in: the only album I’ve covered even close to Bitches Brew’s magnitude...is goddamn Trout Mask Replica.

It’s my only previous context for bass clarinet. My muscle memory with this instrument is fuuuuucked! In spite of itself, I could understand how Trout Mask was organized. It was a man who could not play the piano banged parts out on a piano and held his band hostage until they transcribed it and played it to perfection. True story! There’s a method to Brew’s madness. The fact that three keyboardists and two drummers couldplay at once and not fall apart is proof. I could not understand how Bitches Brew was organized until I learned how it was made. Miles and Teo took bits and bobs from longer exercises and cut them up to make the full pieces in post. Its competition and recording was “loose but tight,” as Miles described. No one truly knew what the final product would sound like, not even the main man! That’s a testament to the tremendous amount of trust Miles had in Teo.

As Langdon Winner said in his review for Rolling Stone, “Whatever your temperament, Bitches Brew will reward in direct proportion to the depth of your own involvement.” You have to be committed to this. There’s a constant ebb-and-flo between tension and...relative...release. Upon first listen, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a groove to speak of. But after a few listens, you’ll be able to pick them out. I find the grooves better in “passive listening;” while I’m reading or transcribing notes, rather than actively listening to take notes.

Brew is proof that genre isn’t just defined by what instruments are on a record. It’s also defined by how they’re used. It’s not the input, it’s the output. But with the same input, we have two pretty different outputs across two discs of Brew. One is foreboding, spooky, anxious. Way more out there. The other disc is much closer to the “fusion” title.

They slammed as much music on here as was psychically possible. Having quite literally no time to waste makes for an abrupt opening. The first we hear of Bitches Brew is Jack DeJohnette. He plays quarter notes on the snare, eighth notes on the hi-hat. This is the anxious opening of Pharaoh’s Dance. Written by Joe Zawinul, it’s interesting to note the thesis statement of Brew was cut on the last day of sessions. One of my favorite moments on the whole record are Bennie Maupin’s quizzical zig-zagging honks on the bass clarinet.It sounds curious, like an animal sniffing around the ground. This agitated feeling is enforced by many edits in a short time – some obvious, some not. Seven of Pharaoh’s 19 edits are made before Miles even comes in! They form a repeating ABC structure; setting up what must be the groove of the song...right? It’s a false sense of security before throwing us into the dense landscape of Brew. Miles comes in for only a brief moment 2:30 in, testing the water, before dropping out. He lets the band simmer on that groove a minute longer; sauntering and spatting about in accented shakes and squeaks. Bennie calls out into the atmosphere, John McLaughlin and Chick Corea subtly respond.

It’s all about spontaneity. Jack DeJohnette remembers “...a stream of creative musical energy” while recording Brew. “One thing was flowing into the next, and we were stopping and starting all the time, maybe to write a sketch out, and then go back to recording. The creative process was being documented on tape, with Miles directing the ensemble like a conductor an orchestra.” As described in Kind of Blue’s liner notes, Miles didn’t bring much more than basic motifs into the studio. Sure, he directed his guys. But as long as certain changes were made and they were looking alive, they could do basically whatever. You’d think this would descend into chaos, but it doesn’t. As Miles explained, “...if you’ve got some great musicians...they will deal with the situation and play beyond what is there and above where they think they can.”

It’s quickly apparent that Bitches Brew will place greater value on rhythm, mood, and texture than melody vs. harmony or linear progression of a song. Note the claustrophobic quaking everyone locks into at 6:45, it completely debases what semblance of a groove there is. Once you find your place in this instrumental corkscrew, it’s far less chaotic. Though the roots aren’t planted in any solid ground just yet, they grow in an African-inspired, dark groove, thanks to Don Alias congas and Jim Riley’s percussion. “Pharaoh’s Dance” establishes another core element of Brew: looping. If you keep your ears open, you'll notice a one-second-long fragment from 8:39 is repeated five times. A very obvious splice and a really cool echoplexed trumpet motif takes us into the next “movement” of “Pharaoh.” Its two halves are connected by the low-crawling motif Chick’s riffing on. Harvey lurches in on bass, Bennie’s panicked interjections are reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. After like twelve minutes, Miles finally sets “Pharaoh’”s true central theme. Baaa-duuu-baaa. Daduuu-duh, Baaa-baa. I never thought any of Brew would be remotely sing-able, but there are licks here and there; bits and bobs I walk around with in my head. These last few minutes lock us into“Pharaoh’”s circle. It’s a musical ourobouros, the snake eating its own tail; not unlike the disc spinning on our turntable.

While “Pharaoh” was one of the last pieces to come along, Bitches Brew was the first piece of music recorded. You can tell it was born first; still primeval, born from darkness into darkness. The strongest and most memorable thing about the title track is its exposition. It’s the most unsettling moment on the whole record. The thumping heart-palpitation entrance of Dave and Harvey, like a dim flickering light. A dissonant chord on the keys freezes us – no fight or flight. Miles’s siren calls out into the night to wake the beasts. The drums roll, the keys play insistent chords. This is blaring loud on my copy. It echoes and pans across your head, and it’s disorienting as hell when you’re not expecting it. “Bitches Brew” is marked by unsettled chords and slithering key changes; swinging tentatively between C major, C minor, and A flat major. Instead of an endless circle, we’re locked into a bizarre three-footed march. There are fifteen edits total in this track, and three loops of the same five seconds: at 3:01, 3:07, and 3:12.

I’m so glad George Grella mentioned the importance of space between discs in his Bitches Brew analysis. I’ve been squawking about that since my Dark Side video and sometimes I feel crazy doing it. It’s nice to know another writer saw it important. The space to get up, lift one disc off the platter, gingerly put it away, and ready the next one gives us a necessary pause to digest what we just experienced. Forgive my bluntness, but there was a lot of shit going on!

Disc two of Bitches Brew opens with Spanish Key. I’ve heard this described as a 1970 modernization of “Flamenco Sketches” off Kind of Blue, or even a callback to Sketches of Spain. Where “Flamenco” is contemplative and smoky, the low-key end of a modal jazz cornerstone, “Spanish Key” hauls ass. It’s indicative of the guys playing this on the road for months. With the audacious approach this ensemble takes, you can tell this was the pice they were most confident with. It’s loaded to the brim with players – fair warning, reader, this is one of those tracks where you really have to keep track of which guy is sat in which channel. Once again, “Spanish Key” puts heavy emphasis on rhythm and texture. A funky, scratchy rhythm guitar part by John accents a front-heavy tempo. Dave Holland on bass puts weight on 1, 2, and 3 of the 4. Miles muddies that by coming in on the 4th beat, shouldering his way from E to D. It feels wrong, but it’s definitely not!

There’s a trippy moment where the two drummers fall out of sync; Jack holds the 1-2-3 emphasis, but Lenny White rubber bands it out, hitting the 4th with the same emphasis. Miles presents a dizzying solo, with crazy runs that totally indulge in the fun. This may be a symptom of me primarily associating Miles with his “fusion era,” but I don’t think of anything particularly high, loud, or fast when I think of his style. Hearing this flourish was a surprise! At 3:12, Chick punches the song up to G major; cutting Miles's solo in two. This modulation is repeated a few times, serving as the “turnaround,” and every time it’s like a jolt directly to the heart. “Spanish Key” drifts in and out of G. It passes through E and D for a back-and-forth between Chick and John. This very elastic approach to key changes the color of the track. The first time around, the bright key mellows Miles out. He eventually drops out for a fun John and Chick duet. Next-level chemistry is needed to make this kind of music, but those two players were vibrating on a higher frequency. “Spanish Key” and the track to follow really make me wish there was more recorded material with them.

This might be a better John McLaughlin showcase than John McLaughlin; he’s ever-dexterous on his attack. Lenny White is pushed up in the mix; his syncopation makes what John’s doing all the more exciting. The editing in “Spanish Key” is pretty chill except for TWO edits within ONE SECOND of the song, between5:34 to 5:35. It’s the most chaotic choice on the whole album! It rather abruptly plucks us out of this rock-edged moment and into Wayne Shorter’s extended saxophone solo. The back half of “Spanish Key” is funky, exotic, and quirky to boot. Chick’s mashing on weird chords just for the hell of it and oooh yeah that’s probably how he broke two Fender Rhodes. There’s a spine-tingling moment where everyone pulls back for a spacey few seconds. Miles produces intense swizzling motions that are echoed by John. They slowly creep up into a subtle, but no less powerful wash of sound.

Let it be known that I am an idiot for not knowing John McLaughlin was on this album sooner. There’s literally a track called John McLaughlin.

(...to be fair, I first heard Bitches Brew in college while nearly blackout drunk.)

“McLaughlin” is the shortest song on the album, clocking in at just over four-and-a-half minutes. It pulled from the title track; originally intended to be part three of a five-part suite. I would love to hear what the full five parts were supposed to sound like together. It feels disconnected from the rest of Brew’s world. Lowkey and measured in feel, with its clustered and calm central Chick motif coming from the right. It feels like there are less people – and that’s because there are! Miles and Wayne aren’t on this! (Miles can be heard on an alternate take.) “McLaughlin” reminds me of the sense of play that went into making Brew. This low-key, cool, clustered groove by Chick has been stuck in my head for a week – it might not have been out-of-place on a television soundtrack. Overall, it’s a nice tribute to Brew’s sidemen; potatoes not to be counted out by the slabs of meat.

Miles Runs The Voodoo Down is the only “new” music on the 2nd disc of Brew. “Sanctuary,” “Spanish Key,” and “McLaughlin” as part of “Bitches Brew” were all in this group’s repertoire. Where “McLaughlin” felt like an interlude, “Voodoo Down” feels like the true comedown from “Spanish Key.” If I had to introduce a new listener to Brew, I’d start here. This is the most normal song of the bunch. This recording is more mellow than the live iterations. Instead of spinning us around and knocking us off our feet, it builds with a quiet intensity via garbled statements from Chick and Joe. It’s got the coolest bassline on the whole album; boosted by Dave and Harvey doubling up on bass guitar. They dictate this steady groove. Even an edit splicing two takes together can’t rock this boulder roll. The song only ends when they drop said groove, it’s a...dare I say pretty? End to the song. The bass tumbles out gently, the percussion politely shakes a bit before it’s set down.

Once again, this is a better showcase for John McLaughlin than “John McLaughlin!” His solo from about 4:30 on makes ample use of his signature short and agile phrases. It’s a treat to hear his style evolve among the three projects I know him from; Extrapolation, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Love Devotion Surrender with Carlos Santana. As a player on this disc of Brew, we see John standing at the edge of one dimension. He stares into the horizon, reaching out, deciding whether or not to grasp onto the next. Spoiler alert: he does. “The Life Divine” is still some of the most batshit-beautiful guitar playing I’ve ever heard.

Grella argues Bitches Brew never comes to an organic end; it’s only ended by the physical limitations of the vinyl format. I disagree. Brew comes to (at least one) natural conclusion with Sanctuary. It’s a Wayne Shorter composition, but there was some drama over writing credits for this one. This tune has the breathing room to build, with bursts of lyrical contributions from Miles; one of which quotes “I Fall In Love Too Easily.” We’ve covered pretty much the whole spectrum of his playing style in these 90-some-odd minutes: from the restraint he exercised in the Kind of Blue days to sirens blaring and delightful showoffery. However, I was most struck by “Sanctuary”’s false ending. It comes to a logical (in my mind, at least) conclusion at about 5:40. An extended note glides over cymbal washes, followed by blink-and-you’ll-miss-it silence...and then it goes on.

We’re brought to the end of the path – and then that path resumes in the next dimension. It looks different, but by touch, going by the feel of the sand, it’s the same.

Upon concluding this second, more “palatable” but less thrilling disc, I’m struck by how beautifully Bitches Brew is structured. It forms a perfect arc: the bizarre climax of “Pharaoh’s Dance” and “Bitches Brew,” the apex at “Spanish Key,” the comedown of “Voodoo Down” and resolution of “Sanctuary.” “McLaughlin” is our B-plot; the thank-you to the side characters. But they don’t feel like side characters. Bitches Brew doesn’t feel like a Miles Davis The Principle Player album – or even a trumpet album. It’s a meeting of the minds.Brew is the number-one thing I love about jazz. There’s no set end goal. It’s about the journey. That’s a marker of genius; always wanting to find that next thing.

Since the release of Questlove’s 2nd film, Sly Lives! AKA The Burdon of Black Genius (which I'd love to review here,) I’ve been thinking about the concept of Black genius. Sly Stone. Jimi Hendrix. Prince. Quincy Jones. Stevie Wonder. When I think of the definition of genius – the compulsion to create and evolve – that is Miles Davis. He always had that urge for metamorphosis. George Grella backed me up on this: “The last gig, the last record, the last style, the music that other musicians were playing, that was all yesterday. He had done that, it didn’t make sense to do it again...There was a constant journey toward the unadorned essence of his music, that quality was just one more record, or sound away…” Cover artist Mati Klarwein thought Miles was the Picasso of jazz. Grella likened him to Picasso too, in the first 10 pages of his book. Ralph Gleason did it in Brew's liner notes!

I think of Brew as a peak Salvador Dali. Masculine, twisting, melting, with a broad, wide horizon. Shaded. An earthy color palette. It plays with sense of time, blurs foreground and background – not unlike its cover art.Sometimes it’s ugly, sometimes it’s controversial. It’s deeply revered. There’s something earthly about it. It’s got depth you can only fall into if you’re not trying.

Pictured: Salvador Dali, Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (oil on canvas, 1938)

In a 1970 Downbeat piece, Dan Morgenstern said:

“In jazz today, there are many seekers of new ways. Often, the searching feels forced, and the results not natural. Miles Davis, however, has that rare gift of being able to give birth and life to new things which, no matter how startling, always seem natural and logical, and open up new roads for others to travel after he has moved on.”

quoted from: Dan Morgenstern, “Miles in Motion” Downbeat, 9/3/1970

This album still has the capacity to intimidate today. It still has some of the most dense, out-of-the-box music ever pressed to wax. Depending on the listener you are and the context in which you wander into this, it can be terrifying.

But you can’t wander into Bitches Brew. You have to dive in – but not entirely consciously. You have to cover your eyes and step over the ledge. It’ll overload your senses, but you can coexist with it. Live with it in the background for five weeks. Shut yourself in a room with incense to feel that trace state power. Bitches Brew is powerful, deep, and dark, with its own gravitational pull. I have climbed in and after those first couple listens, every time I had to climb out I was reluctant to.

Bitches Brew is the hole. Now get lost.

Personal favorites: “Pharaoh’s Dance,” “Bitches Brew,” “Spanish Key,” “Miles Runs The Voodoo Down”

– AD ☆

Watch the full episode above!

Davis, Miles, with Quincy Troupe. Miles: The Autobiography. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2011 ed.

Farber, Jim. “‘It Sounded Like The Future:’ Behind Miles Davis’s Greatest Album.” The Guardian, 2/24/2020. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/24/miles-davis-bitches-brew-50th-anniversary-film

Freeman, Phil. Running The Voodoo Down: The Electric Music of Miles Davis. Backbeat, 2005.

Gertges, Chris. “Bitches Brew Coverpainter MATI KLARWEIN meets MILES DAVIS.” YouTube, uploaded by Chris Gertges, 11/12/2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjGLXbIlVy8

Grella Jr., George. 33 1/3: Bitches Brew. New York, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Morgenstern, Dan. “Miles in Motion.” Downbeat, 9/3/1970. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/DownBeat/70s/70/Downbeat-1970-09-03.pdf

Szantor, Jim. “Record Reviews: Miles Davis – Bitches Brew.” Downbeat, 6/11/1970. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/DownBeat/70s/70/Downbeat-1970-06-11.pdf

Szwed, John. So What: The Life of Miles Davis. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2002. https://archive.org/details/sowhatlifeofmile00szwe/page/n5/mode/2up

Tingen, Paul. “Miles Davis and the Making of Bitches Brew: Sorcerer’s Brew.” Jazz Times, 5/26/2024. https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/miles-davis-and-the-making-of-bitches-brew-sorcerers-brew/

Winner, Langdon. “Bitches Brew.” Rolling Stone, 5/28/1970. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/bitches-brew-186433/

“Teo Macero on Creating ‘Bitches Brew’ With Miles Davis” YouTube, uploaded by ArtistsHouseMusic, 11/6/2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__6UOzvRmEE&t=12s