Archive for Bitches Brew

Spanish Key – Miles Davis

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on December 17, 2023 by telescoper

As I am still in Spain for a for more days before the Christmas break I thought I would share a vaguely relevant piece of music, Spanish Key from the 1970 album Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. This I don’t have time to write a long piece about this album, but I will say that of all the abrupt changes of musical direction during the career of Miles Davis, this album is probably the most startling and many jazz fans – even ardent admirers of Miles Davis – don’t like it at all. Anyway, des goûts et des couleurs on ne discute pas…

This track is particularly interesting to me because I’ve long wondered about the title and the musical structure. I’m not at all sure, but it seems likely to me that the title indicates the relationship of this piece to the track Flamenco Sketches from the classic album Kind of Blue recorded over a decade earlier. In that album, Miles was experimenting with jazz based not on traditional keys and scales, but on modes. In Flamenco Sketches there is a section based on a major phrygian mode which is commonly used in flamenco music. Spanish Key is in a very different style – much faster for one thing – but it has a similar pattern involving changes from E to D to D (phrygian) to E (phrygian) and G (mixolydian). Apparently Miles gave minimal instruction to his musicians about what to play, but did have prearranged signals to shift from one mode to another, such as happens about 3:15 in the recording when he ushers in a guitar solo by John McLaughlin, and around 12:46 when the mood abruptly changes as Miles introduces a new theme. I also think it was a stroke of genius to include a bass clarinet on this album; on this track it adds a Moorish element to the Spanish tinge.

Anyway, there’s so much going on in this track that it’s more instructive to listen to it than write about it, so here you are. Enjoy!

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John McLaughlin

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on June 12, 2022 by telescoper

It’s Sunday and I’ve just finished work for the day. Too tired to write anything substantial I thought I’d share a track featuring and named after the guitarist I went to see at the National Concert Hall a few weeks ago. John McLaughlin is the 4th track on the Miles Davis (double) album Bitches Brew. It doesn’t feature Miles Davis on trumpet nor Wayne Shorter on saxophone but does involve the electric pianos of Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, the bass of Dave Holland, the drums of Lenny White and Jack de Johnette, other percussion by Don Alias and Juma Santos and Bennie Maupin on bass clarinet; the latter addition to the ensemble being a stroke of genius by Miles Davis. I know quite a lot of fans of Miles Davis don’t like this album at all, finding it all a bit perplexing but I don’t mind music that’s a bit perplexing and I think it’s great. Most of the tracks are very long but this one is only four and a half minutes or so in duration, built around a simple riff laid over a loose and very dynamic rhythmic accompaniment. Like the other numbers, it’s almost entirely improvised.

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A Kind of Brew

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on August 27, 2011 by telescoper

Well here’s a find for fan’s of Miles Davis. I stumbled across this exceedingly rare clip of his 1969 band playing at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London, complete with an introduction by Ronnie Scott himself. It’s  rare, firstly, because Miles didn’t do many club gigs at this time (or after) and I have a feeling that this might be one of his last; he usually played big concert venues whenever he toured in later years. But an even rarer thing about it is that this is the legendary “Lost Quintet” of Miles (on trumpet, of course), Wayne Shorter on saxophone(s), Chick Corea (keyboards), Jack de Johnette on drums and Dave Holland on bass.

Filmed in November 1969, this performance took place just a few months after the recording sessions that give rise to the celebrated but controversial album Bitches Brew, which was released in April 1970. The band at Ronnie Scotts was a subset of the larger ensemble that made the album, but you can hear the similarity in musical style, heavily influenced by psychedelic rock…

And here, for completeness, is a fuller version of the title track of the album Bitches Brew, recorded just two days later in the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen.

Miles was obviously experimenting with a much freer form of improvisation at this time and both the album and this live performance seethe with a kind of wild passion that threatens to burst into anarchy at any moment. It’s not exactly easy listening, of course, and the live performance is inevitably rough around the edges, but I think it’s a fascinating bit of jazz history. And, for what it’s worth, I think Bitches Brew is completely and utterly brilliant..

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