Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
Warning: This album will definitely not help everyone to write. When I first listened to this album I did not get it and had no idea why it was considered such a masterwork. The thought of working to it was the very last thing in my mind.
Most music critics consider this to be one of the best albums of all time. It is an eclectic album that Davis set up and recorded quickly. It has a more extreme playing and production style than any of the earlier cool jazz and earlier styles of jazz that made him famous. Recording with different groups of students, effects that were new at the time, and intense editing techniques.
The whole mood of this album is synonymous with the night and things that groove with it. I find it to be one of the best albums in terms of putting me into a different headspace. I find that a lot of the smoother writing albums don’t cut through every time, this one does but what comes out is not always going to work for every type of writing.
There is a moody desolation to this music which does it for me at any rate. When this album was recorded there was only a few people like the Beatles who were experimenting with the cut up style. It influenced many later albums and the later jazz musicians. The improvisational style is deceptive, because this album was also the result of a lot of time in production.
The album has some pretty cool sixties seventies artwork as well. I don’t know what it means but it works. This shows the best of electric Miles stage, around about when this was recorded Miles had married and divorced the funk queen Ketty Davis and definitely been influenced by the experimental electric music of the period, and artists like Jimi Hendrix who Davis hated because he was jealous of his friendship with his former wife Davis.
Released
1970
Lyrics
No lyrics, lots of brass, lots of weird noises guaranteed to get you going.
Mood
There is a weird ethereal, spooky vibe to this music. It took me a long while to get into the movement of it and then it sounded natural. The weirdness is something that will push you out of your comfort zone, but once you’r used to it, it succeeds every time in instantly focussing me on work with no distraction. This is generally exactly what I need to get typing without distraction.
Good to work to
A great album to work to. I would include the proviso that this is a really good introspective album rather than a mechanised disciplined album. This is a wild animal of an album, one that everyone should have listened to at least once.
Like
I can not think of anything that is like this, this is only an album that has been imitated ever since. Maybe you might find some more atmosperic works of the modern day that might approximate it, but I don’t think so.
The Artist/s
Miles Davis is jazz royalty. He was the king of jazz.
Teo Macero – Producer
Wayne Shorter – soprano saxophone
Bennie Muapin – bass clarinet
Joe Zawinul – electric piano
Chick Corea – electric piano
John McLaughlin – electric guitar
Dave Holland – bass
Harvey Brooks – electric bass
Lenny White – drum set
Don alias – congas
Juma Santos – shaker congas
Airto Moreira – percussion and cuica
Other works
There are so many other albums I could recommend, but I can only ponder what is the correct one to use for writing. There are so many great albums, one of my favourites is ’In a Silent Way’ recorded the year before which would be considered as a much more straight up and down album. I can’t give you a direct comparison with any to the other albums though, perhaps ‘Sketches of Spain.’
Where Can I buy it, and in what formats
If you can’t find a copy of this to buy you’re not looking, it’s everywhere.
The Verdict
As pointed out in the earlier warning, this album is definitely not for everybody. Use it for concentrated burst of creativity or when you really need to take your head to work world quickly.