Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Pharaoh's Dance
2. Bitches Brew
3. Spanish Key
4. John McLaughlin

Disc 2:

1. Miles Runs The Voodoo Down
2. Sanctuary
3. Great Expectations
4. Orange Lady
5. Yaphet
6. Corrado

Disc 3:

1. Trevere
2. The Big Green Serpent
3. The Little Blue Frog (Alt.)
4. The Little Blue Frog (Mst.)
5. Lonely Fire
6. Guinnevere

Disc 4:

1. Feio
2. Double Image
3. Recollections
4. Take It Or Leave It
5. Double Image

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58160 in Music
• Released on: 1998-11-24
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Extra tracks

Amazon.com
These historic sessions, recorded between 1969 and 1970 and originally released as a 90-minute double LP, merged jazz and rock into the hybrid genre known as fusion. They remain Miles Davis's most controversial recordings. Davis, along with pianists Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Joe Zawinul; bassist Dave Holland; soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter; bass clarinetist Benny Maupin; drummers Jack DeJohnette, Billy Cobham, and Lenny White; and percussionist Airto Moreira, went electric with rock rhythms, and the rest, as they say, is history, or as some feel, the end of jazz history.

Now, all of the sessions' 265 minutes are contained on this four-CD set, compiled from alternate takes, nine unreleased tracks, and selections from previously released LPs. The superb remastering reveals the spectral power of Davis's amplified, muted, and open trumpet painting on a swirling harmonic canvas created by Hancock, Corea, and Zawinul, especially on Zawinul's impressionistic "Pharoah's Dance," Shorter's elliptical "Sanctuary," and Davis's rocking "John McLaughlin."

The previously unreleased tracks, including "Yaphet," "Corrado," "Tevere," "The Big Green Serpent," and Zawinul's "Double Image," contain some interesting East Indian motifs and inventive arrangements but will probably not change anyone's mind about this well-debated period of Miles Davis's career. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Customer Reviews

The 3rd of 8 boxes
The 3rd of 8 box sets covering Miles recorded output at Columbia. "Bitches Brew" caused an uproar when first released. Jazz purists were up in arms, saying Davis sold-out , and this was the furthest thing from music ever released. Guess what , no surprise , they were wrong. One of the releases that started the whole , as of then , new genre of electric jazz-rock fusion. A monumentally important release ! (How many times is Davis responsible for the evolution of jazz ?)

The best of the box sets

Conventional wisdom seems to be that the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions is weak and uneven, and possibly even dishonest in its title; and that one should instead go for the Complete In A Silent Way Sessions or the Jack Johnson Sessions.

However, in my opinion exactly the reverse is true. The In A Silent Way Sessions are terrific, but they suffer from an ungodly amount of noodling. It is very true what they say, that some of the tracks in the Silent Way box set were probably intended for later editing, but that Teo never got around to it. Further, many of the tracks (only one of which, Frelon Brun, was released at the time) consist of some really cheesy experimentation with boogaloo fusion which Miles abandoned later on.

As for the Jack Johnson sessions, they are the weakest of all, with very loud, very repetitious tracks making great use of electric instruments, but strangely lacking in interest.

To me, the Bitches Brew box set is the best. True, the title is perhaps less apt than for the other two box sets. But remember, this box set came FIRST. The fact that the original cuts of the Silent Way and Jack Johnson material were put on to the other two box sets (with little resultant insight of the original cuts, I might add) was BECAUSE of complaints over this box set. So those who call the title of this box set a "scam" or whatever are forgetting which box set came first.

With that out of the way, to me this box set is the best of the three. Certainly, the sound is not quite as good, and there is also an enormous amount of dead wood here too. But the music is, to me, more interesting.

DISC ONE

The original Bitches Brew material might seem chaotic and arbitrary at first, but multiple listenings confirm what a musical genius Miles Davis was.

Pharaoh's Dance: This tune, by the late Joe Zawinul, is an unlikely album-opener, as it is a meandering and formless piece that is possibly the most avant garde on the album. An atmosphere similar to "Shh/Peaceful" from In A Silent Way pervades this recording. The track is heavily edited, with many chunks being only a couple of seconds long. The main melody is not stated directly but is merely hinted at until close to the end of the recording.

Bitches Brew: Miles Davis' fusion classic begins with a rubato thumping in the bass, matched by Miles' screeching Echoplexed trumpet. Then an evil sounding ostinato bass line starts up, with all the improvisation occurring on top, reminiscent of Bach's organ Passacaglia. At the end the rubato segment comes back. Like Pharaoh's Dance, this track is heavily edited.

Spanish Key: The best track on the album is also an unedited performance. This piece had been performed by Miles in live situations before the studio recording. The signature of this piece is the modal changes, with occur with an electric shock whenever Miles plays a pre-determined code phrase on his trumpet.

DISC TWO

Miles Runs the Voodoo Down: Another live staple by this time, but heavily modified by Miles. The drum beat is very unusual, and on this track Miles has stripped down the original melody (which you may only find on bootlegs) until it is just a skeleton. A very funky track.

Great Expectations/Orange Lady: This track, released on Big Fun, is another in a long line of Miles experiments in repeated horn ostinatos (Nefertiti, Sanctuary, Two Faced). Here, however, there is precious little to listen to under the repeated horn figures, and those thumping chord changes get very dull after the twentieth time.

Corrado: Really funky stuff, with some great soloing.

DISC THREE

Trevere/Big Green Serpent: Both perfect examples of scraps of music that should really have been left in the archives! What on earth is going on?

Lonely Fire: My favourite track of the box set outside the original Bitches Brew album. Another experiment in repeated horn ostinatos, but this time with really beautiful soloing to look forward to, along with some funky bass.

Guinnevere: Crosby, Stills and Nash tune given a truly weird workout here, with a mysterious Sitar-laden atmosphere and yet another experiment with repeated horn ostinatos. Very atmospheric.

DISC FOUR

Feio: Wayne Shorter's tune is a slow, shapeless, mysterious bass figure that sounds like a nightmare come to life. Airto Moreira's cuica squawks plaintively like a vulture waiting for someone to die.

Double Image: This track points the way forward to future developments. Yet another repeated horn ostinato experiment, but this time with John McLaughlin's distorted electric guitar sounding really raunchy. No soloing, but plenty of atmosphere.

Recollections: A long, meandering track like Lonely Fire, with many wonderful solos.

A fascinating document
It is agreed: the title of this CD Box-set is misleading. There are complaints that it does not deliver more of the actual Bitches Brew sessions of August 1969.(the liner notes do indicate, however, that a rehearsal track of Pharaoh's Dance has been rejected) Others, like Cook & Morton in their Penguin guide, take the title for granted and conclude that all the material included here gives a lesser picture of the original album.
Let's forget the title and think of it as the Miles Davis story from August 1969 to February 1970. As such, it is a great document which sheds much light on a period that is fascinating, but hitherto a little confusing.
I remember well listening to Great Expectations/Mulher Laranja for the very first time, having bought the Big Fun CD some years ago. I was instantly amazed and wondered when this music would have been recorded. The notes said "between 1969 and 1972". Oh well...
The Bitches Brew box-set tells you exactly what you need to know in every detail, and as it turns out, Great Expectations/Mulher Laranja was recorded only 3 months after Biches Brew. What a dramatic stylistic turn ! This new material, along with the early 1970 recordings of "Guinevere" and "Recollections", is as chilled and floating as Bitches Brew was hot and fiery. It is also much less abstract, relies on drones and incantations, using indian- as well as Brazilian- instruments.
In the 4 tracks of Great Expectations/Orange Lady, Guinnevere, Recollections and Lonely Fire; Davis and Macero already possessed all 4 sides of a potential suberb double vinyl, which would have been a chilled and meditative sibling of Bitches Brew. It leaves me wondering why they didn't publish it. Was it too fashionnable, too hippie? too repetitive? not jazzy enough, too easy? did it go against the real path of Miles Davis who was looking towards a more guitar-dominated, harder sound? It wasn't until 1974 that the two strongest tracks, Great Expectations/Mulher Laranja and Lonely Fire got eventually released, and Guinnevere didn't see the vinyl until 1979.
A harder guitar sound on Double-Image is heard again in early 1970, for a later inclusion in "live-evil" .And the First Jack Johnson session is only 2 months away !!
This box-set reminds us just how much happened in 6 months. Of the 4 and a half hours recorded here, a good 3 is very commendable music.
Which leads us to the question of the previously unreleased material: there is some good in theses tracks, but you can forgive Davis and Macero for "forgetting" them. Much of it sounds like recreational, a tad vacuous music intended to entertain the musicians, but perhaps not a large public. Even so, it remains interesting and some of it is entertaining. The wonderful miniature "Take it or Leave it" , just over 2 minutes in lenght, is my star unreleased track. The playing on the alternate take of "little Blue Frog" links back to In A Silent Way, as does the theme of "Recollections". A piece like "Trevere", however, points at the cliches of psychedelic/progressive rock of the time and you can guess why it took it 3 decades to get out of the can.
You learn so much from this box-set, and the presentation is irresistible. Bitches Brew sounds better, Lonely Fire sounds better, and much exciting , precise information - for example the editing process of Pharaoh's Dance - is made available.