# Bitches Brew fan thread



## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

I have been enjoying Bitches Brew again after a while away from it. It took me maybe 8 years to fully grasp it in total, however maybe I will never get a full understanding even in a lifetime. 

I liked the odd track but found certain tracks pretty impenetrable. However it was one of those albums where I found myself always trying to give it a chance. I hate this idea of people pretending to like something because they feel they have to but I also hate when people dismiss something out of hand. I don't mind struggling with something if I feel it calls me back and demands I give it another go. 

I had been a jazz fan and more specifically a fan of In A Silent Way, Miles' previous LP, before hand. I even liked the albums after Bitches Brew. But for some reason I never grasp the whole of BB. I used to skip Pharaoh's Dance (now it is my favourite track) and only really enjoy Spanish Key and the title track. 

However now it is one of my all time classics and I listen to it pretty regularly, even at work just as something cool in the background. 

I found getting it on original CBS vinyl changed things for me. First of all it is nice to just stick on a side of it and fully absorb one 25 minute track at a sitting. The option to flip over or not to flip over gives it a bit of breathing space which I feel it needs to fully appreciate. Also the vinyl has the original mix before the remaster which is subtly different.

The way the album was made is also fascinating, both in the composition and the subsequent editing of certain tracks together by the producer Teo Macero. Very forward looking both in conception and execution.

I know a lot of people had problems with it when it came out but I read some where that it was a result of Miles' simply wanting to get back to the blues, as a natural progression from his modal minimalism of before. In a sense how much more simple (as far as the musical form) and also complex (in the emotional commitment needed to play it) can you get than the blues?

Any other fans of this album out there? If so do you have a story about it, when did you first hear it and what are your favourite tracks?


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

I used to have it on vinyl in the 80s but found that I only really listened to Miles Runs The Voodoo Down.

I may revisit it on CD one day.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

My favorite track on the album is undoubtetly Sanctuary, the last great gift of Wayne Shorter to the band, that is also one of my desert island pieces. It's curious because at first for me it was a sort of guilty pleasure: I was into things like Albert Ayler and so because it was more quiet and slow and slcertainly more composed piece compared to the magma of the other tracks (more similar to what Davis has done in the following albums often based on simple vamps), so in my naivety I thought it was less significative (go figure). Then I realized that it was a stronger and singular composition with a unique atmosphere and I started to realize how great Shorter is. Davis realized its value too, because he tried to steal the piece as he did with Bill Evans and his Blue in green.
I really like also the rest of the album, Spanish key and Pharoah's dance in particular, but I don't listen that often to it now (even if the opening played by Zawinul with the Fender Rhodes on Pharoah's dance is indelible in my mind).
But Sanctuary, I can't live without it.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Miles Runs the Voodoo Down


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

The cool kid across the street leant me his precious copy when I was about 15. I found it impenetrable so he passed me Kind of Blue. The seed was sown.

I've never got into Bitches Brew or to be honest any of his electronic phase, but in that strange way it let me know who Miles was.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I'd be tempted to buy a vinyl copy just for the album cover. Musically, it's good, though I prefer most of his earlier 60s stuff.


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## Aleksandar (Feb 21, 2015)

Big fan of this album. Not too crazy about In A Silent Way and A Tribute To Jack Johnson from the same era, but those sessions recorded earlier that became the basis for Get Up With It and Dark Magus are awesome. Of course, On the Corner is another classic.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

norman bates said:


> My favorite track on the album is undoubtetly Sanctuary, the last great gift of Wayne Shorter to the band, that is also one of my desert island pieces. It's curious because at first for me it was a sort of guilty pleasure: I was into things like Albert Ayler


Interesting. Back in the day, I was more into the experimental playing, like Ayler, and I turned my nose up at this one, so I've actually never heard it. I'm fixing that today.

One thing that is picking up my ears is the bass and electric bass. My church band has more than one bass player, and right now they trade off. I have wanted to get them open to the idea that you can have more than one bass playing as long as they cooperate together. This might give them at least an idea that it can be done.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

A seminal album by a jazz giant. I love all of Miles' output, even his funk phase. But I think my favourite is the period from Miles Smiles through to Big Fun. Just a wealth of great, thought-provoking music. I have been listening to Bitches Brew regularly for the last 45 years and it never fails to make me smile and I still hear new things every time. And I have it on vinyl from the day of its original release in April 1970 plus every cd incarnation there has been. Yes, I know, but there it is, I'm a big fan.

Incidentally I am presently listening to and working my way through The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel. Wonderful stuff.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I am a huge fan of fusion, the jazz sub-genre that this album helped spawn. But I never cared for 'Bitches Brew' nor any of Miles' electric material.

I love much of his 60's releases. 

I'll listen to Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Weather Report, Brand X, and all the other fusion (past and present) that came out of the influences this album, all day long.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Not a huge fan of Bitches Brew. I like the 60s quintet stuff, In A Silent Way, and Live Evil.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The quality and diversity of Miles' output from Miles In The Sky through to Live Evil is absolutely stunning even by his celestial standards, and for me Bitches Brew remains the cornerstone work from that period.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

While I was a big jazz listener in the '80s, Miles was probably the only one of the jazz greats that I was never so hugely wild about  Oddly, when I replaced my favourite jazz albums on CD, I also got a copy of Bitches Brew, an album I had never previously owned. It has become a real favourite


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

My favorite track is Pharaoh's Dance. It evokes a great expectation. Spanish Key is probably the second.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Though I've long preferred "acoustic" Miles (and I have quite a collection of MD albums, several dozen actually, including _THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS _Limited-Edition Trumpet Case Box Set_ and _the _Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection_, several of the "bootleg" collections, "live" box sets, and things like the 9-CD set _Miles Davis: Waiting for Trane_ "The Studio Master Takes Collection" on the Le Chant du Monde label, and the 13-CD set from United Archives titled _Miles Davis: Live Recordings 1948-1957_ .... My collection of _Kind of Blue _(my favorite Miles) runs to well over a dozen copies alone, in the various editions: LP mono, LP stereo, LP colored vinyl, CD original speed, CD corrected speed, SACD hybrid, SACD only, Japanese pressings, German pressings ....) to the "electric" stuff, I've never given up on _any_ Miles, though there were albums I didn't get on first hearing.

I dig Miles. But I've only lately come round, really, to the "electric" stuff. And in very recent weeks I've actually managed serious listens to _Bitches Brew _(on both vinyl and CD) as well as 1977's _Dark Magus: Live at Carnegie Hall _and 1977's _Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West_, all three of which I deeply enjoyed much more than I did "back in the day" of their original release.

Two Davis albums still elude me. The 1992 Warner Bros. release titled _doo-bop_, and the 1989 album from Columbia titled _Aura_. I return to these two every once in a while, but I just don't get them. Not yet.

However, the 1986 Warner Bros. release title _Tutu_ is a masterpiece. So ... late Miles can rank with early or middle period Miles ... 'cause Miles is Miles is miles ahead of nearly everybody else in nearly all cases (except, so far for me, with _doo-bop _and _Aura_).


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

i am a fan of the album.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

One of those albums that opened the doors of perception to me.


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## FPwtc (Dec 3, 2014)

There is a Herbie Hancock track from Maiden Voyage that has similar elements of Sanctuary, I just can't place which one. When you hear it though you can see that Wayne Shorter borrowed a bit of the theme.


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## Lyricus (Dec 11, 2015)

FPwtc said:


> There is a Herbie Hancock track from Maiden Voyage that has similar elements of Sanctuary, I just can't place which one. When you hear it though you can see that Wayne Shorter borrowed a bit of the theme.


Maiden Voyage is superb, though I've always been partial to Head Hunters.

Oddly, I much prefer Kind of Blue to Bitches Brew. That early cool takes the cake for me.


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