Artist: Miles Davis
Album: Bitches Brew
Label: Columbia
Year: 1969
This is Miles Davis explosion. Bitches Brew is a radical departure from everything he'd done beforehand, including and especially its predecessor, In A Silent Way. With his movement in the direction of what would come to be known as fusion, Miles moved away from quintets, and created new dimensions for sound to exist in. Not since his work with Gil Evans had Miles' music been so orchestrated, and every album was a subtle step towards this bold, new direction. Whereas previous albums (Silent Way, Files De Kilimanjaro) had a feel more akin to his bop and acoustic work (in tone and volume, at least), Bitches Brew is closer to opening the gates of hell and attacking. It's a powerful record in a way Miles had never been powerful before. Every moment is sublime.
An attempt to sonically describe this record seems useless. Miles' trumpet is hard, no longer soft like it was back in the days of Round About Midnight. But the rest of the players...the lineup...they are able to make it a masterpiece. The group of musicians on the record both recalls jazz's past and looks to its future, in a way that many who came after Miles could not achieve: they didn't have the history. Mark Prindle points out that the best indie bands had punk backgrounds and decided to do new things with it...but those with only indie backgrounds tend to suck. I feel that this is why bands like The Weather Report were bound to suck: because their background was in fusion, not jazz. So while already-legendary players like Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock and Larry Young litter the album, so does new faces like Joe Zawinul and John McLaughlin whose playing on guitar would be key to the album's greatness.
Like I've said, this is a hard album to describe. Just sit down for an hour or so and dig in.
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