079: Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (1970)

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“Bitches Brew was like a big pot and Miles was the sorcerer. He was hanging over it, saying, ‘I’m going to add a dash of Jack DeJohnette, and a little bit of John McLaughlin, and then I’m going to add a pinch of Lenny White. And here’s a teaspoonful of Bennie Maupin playing the bass clarinet.’ He made that work."

—Lenny White

The career of jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis from the late 1940s through his (temporary) retirement in 1975 largely doubles as a tour of every significant stylistic development in the jazz world during this time. By the late 1960s, after taking acoustic jazz as far as he believed it could go, Miles chose to immerse himself in the world of electric jazz fusion, and his 1970 album Bitches Brew remains both one of the most famous jazz fusion albums and one of the most famous Miles Davis albums overall. In this episode, Mike leads a discussion (Phil moderating, John co-hosting) on this monster of a listening experience: an album that that gets labeled as jazz-rock but often sounds nothing like either jazz or rock; an album that got dismissed by many contemporary jazz listeners and critics as a sell-out even though it's some of the least accessible music Davis ever made; and an album where producer Teo Macero proved that extensive tape manipulation could work every bit as well in the jazz world as it could in the rock world.

Miscellany

• The inspiration for the teaser comes from an infamous internal CBS memo, in which Teo Macero informed the relevant people that Miles wanted to title the album as he did and asked how to proceed. A link to an image of this memo is found below.

• Bitches Brew may not have been the sellout that jazz purists claimed it was, but it did do quite well commercially for an album so avant-garde, peaking at #35 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Soul LPs chart. (The three albums above it on the Soul chart were The Isaac Hayes Movement, ABC by the Jackson 5, and The Last Poets.)

• It also went on to become the third best-selling jazz album ever, underneath Miles’ own Kind of Blue and Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, both of which were also produced by Teo Macero.

• Since recording this episode, the amount of Miles Davis in Mike’s collection has increased from 22 hours to a full 24.

• The amount of Miles Davis in John’s collection is about 55 hours. Still much less than in Phil’s collection!

• Back in the days when the Discord & Rhyme crew had time to write for a blog, John wrote his first post about getting into jazz in his late 20s and some general advice for people who might feel hesitant about listening to jazz.

• There is an excellent image that provides a visual summary of sonata form using cookies. A link to a page illustrating this and some other forms is found below. This page also contains an illustration of Major, Minor, and Phrygian modes using Oreos. 

Other links 

• Teo Macero’s Bitches Brew memo to Columbia Records (Dangerous Minds)

• Miles Davis and the Making of Bitches Brew (JazzTimes)

• The Johnny Otis Show at Monterey, which got Mike obsessed with saxophones (Vimeo)

• John's blog post on getting into jazz

• Music theory, explained with Oreos (classicfm)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Bitches Brew playlist (Spotify)

• Discord & Rhyme’s Patreon

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

• Mike DeFabio (host)

• Phil Maddox (moderator)

• John McFerrin 

Bitches Brew tracklist

1. Pharaoh’s Dance

2. Bitches Brew

3. Spanish Key

4. John McLaughlin

5. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down

6. Sanctuary 

Other clips used 

Miles Davis:

• Nefertiti

• Boplicity

• Four

• So What

• Will o’ the Wisp

• Orbits

• Stuff

• Shhh/Peaceful

• Corrado

• Bitches Brew (Live at the Fillmore West)

• Flamenco Sketches

• Spanish Key (Live at the Isle of Wight)

• Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio)

• Prelude (Part I)

• Great Expectations

• Feio 

Others:

• Weather Report - Birdland

• Charlie Parker - Yardbird Suite

• Betty Davis - They Say I’m Different

• Nomeansno - Bitch’s Brew

• The Grateful Dead - Playing in the Band (Live at Roosevelt Stadium, 8/6/74)

• Phish - Stash

• John Coltrane - Giant Steps

• Chick Corea - Return to Forever

• Radiohead - Kinetic

• Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Chile

• Yes - Sound Chaser

• Frank Sinatra - I Fall in Love Too Easily

• Weather Report - Umbrellas

• The Grateful Dead - Dark Star

Band/album personnel

• Miles Davis – trumpet (all tracks except 5)

• Wayne Shorter – soprano saxophone (1–3, 5–6)

• Bennie Maupin – bass clarinet (1–5)

• Joe Zawinul – electric piano (2, 4, 6)

• Chick Corea – electric piano (all tracks)

• John McLaughlin – electric guitar (all tracks)

• Dave Holland – bass (all tracks)

• Harvey Brooks – electric bass (1–3, 5)

• Lenny White – drum set (1–4)

• Jack DeJohnette – drum set (2, 4–6)

• Don Alias – congas (1–4, 6), drum set (5)

• Juma Santos (credited as "Jim Riley") – shaker, congas (2, 4, 6), shaker only (1, 3), congas only (5)

• Joe Zawinul – electric piano (1, 3, 5)

• Larry Young – electric piano (1, 3)

• Jack DeJohnette – drum set (1, 3)

• Teo Macero – producer

• Frank Laico – engineer (August 19, 1969 session)

• Stan Tonkel – engineer (all other sessions)

• Mark Wilder – mastering

Credits 

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

• Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

• Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

• The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

• Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

• Herbie Hancock - Hornets

• Kraftwerk - Autobahn

• Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

• Miles Davis - Spanish Key (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream Bitches Brew and other albums by Miles Davis at milesdavis.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for editing, production, and original music, in addition to hosting this episode. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.