Miles Davis

This is the album that found Miles losing some of his older jazz audience while gaining a new rock fan following. Considered by some at the time to be a sell-out, this is actually daring music that still challenges and inspires. Wayne Shorter remains on soprano sax, though new musicians John McLaughlin, Chick Corea and Larry Young all shine in the spotlight.

Miles' music continues to grow in its beauty, subtlety and sheer magnificence. Bitches'
Brew is a further extension of the basic idea he investigated in his two previous albums,
Filles De Kilimanjaro and In A Silent Way. In a larger sense, however, the record is yet
another step in the unceasing process of evolution Miles has undergone since the Forties.
The man never stops to rest on his accomplishments. Driven forward by a creati... More >

If this historic set is about any one thing it's electric-meets-acoustic: the theme of the twenty-seven-minute title side, in which Miles's horn combines with an electric instrument for a two-note motif that's suddenly resolved after a dozen repetitions in a single echoed trumpet blat, says it all. But it's not about any one thing--it's a brilliant wash of ideas, so many ideas that it leaves an unfocused impression. That's probably why I don't return to it as I do to the quieter electric-meets-acoustic of In a Silent Way, although maybe it's just that this one rocks less--three different percussionists replace Tony Williams, whose steady pulse is put aside for the subtle shades of Latin and funk polyrhythm that never gather the requisite fervor. Enormously suggestive, and never less than enjoyable, but not quite compelling. Which is what rock is supposed to be. (Grade - A-)