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| Track list: 1. Spanish Key 2. John McLaughlin 3. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down 4. Sanctuary 5. Feio Running time: 58 minutes Released: 1970 |
So after the first disc of this so called classic was a major disappointment, what of the remaining hour of music from Bitches' Brew? My hopes aren't high, but the fact that these tracks are a touch shorter might be a good sign.
Another week has gone by since I gave time over to the first disc in this set, and I am still massively disappointed with it. I am heartened then, when the initial sounds of Spanish Key are really very appealing. The length of the piece concerns me, on past form, and the hour length of these 5 tunes together is what sealed not listening to anything during the week. Now though, it is a bright Sunday morning and I am putting off the thought of having to garden in the brisk October air.
A forceful trumpet, sultry sax and a rhythm that wouldn't feel out of place in noughties electronica is a good introduction though. The addition of synth notes lightens the mood and it is this lightening that makes the first theme change work, the tone of the brass pieces changing to be more of a floating sound, sitting above the continued structure rather than wallowing in amongst it. The threatening percussion fades a little as we approach half-way, and there is a full on tonal shift to a brighter, funkier piece. Oddly, whilst I felt that disc 1 was a child of its time, dated horribly, this piece feels like it was ahead of its and still sits nicely. If I didn't know who I was listening to here, for those stretches when Davis' trumpet is quiet or placed other than front and centre I would be guessing the creators as more likely to be a Ninja Tune affiliate of some kind. What a difference a week makes?
The shuffling nature of the percussion maintains the consistency throughout this track, addressing the worst of the issues I had with Pharaoh's Dance, and the lines and shapes woven on top of that by the keyboards and horns are given license to meander precisely because they have boundaries drawn within which to do so. I cannot escape the feeling that the piece goes too far and too long - everything past about 10 minutes feels unnecessary - but unlike with what I heard last week it does keep me engaged and doesn't stray far from the path in other ways. Its not a complete wash out for Bitches Brew, then.
John McLaughlin stands out on this album because it is sub 5 minutes. Musically it definitely feels like it comes from the same place as Spanish Key, but there is less reliance on horns here - keys and guitars carry the piece instead and half way through I am not sure I have heard Davis' trumpet once. It ends up feeling much of a muchness - too samey throughout to generate any real feeling. It could have been another movement in the prior track (though I am grateful that it wasn't) and probably only survives a cull because of its relative brevity making it a more appropriate inclusion in a shuffle.
There is a nice feel to the start of the third track. Trumpet back to lead the main theme, percussion slowed down giving a more southern bayou feel to things (should that be capitalised?) which the top end has to work to shake off, and does. The horn theme is the most musical we have had on the album to date and this really does feel like a fusion between a more classical jazz with sounds that post-date it because the combination sits well here. Fusion implies a joining, and on the first disc things were simply not linked up right. It feels to me as if the group as a whole maybe learned from that and by this point in the recording sessions had realised the importance of continuity and connections in enabling the freewheeling chop and change that drives the melodies (such as they are). This disc feels a world away from the two tracks that made up the first half of the record.
I've hit a lull though as the midpoint of Miles Runs the Voodoo Down falls into blandness - the horn melodies have gone and whilst there is still continuity of bass the rest of it has gone tits up. Experimentation on the keys overrides anything else that forms part of the piece, like a black hole sucking away any merit. Thankfully the section is gone as suddenly as it arrived but it leaves a sour note for the first time in this listen. There are two more tracks to go, and its another 20 minutes. I realise suddenly that the bland moment may have brought upon a fatigue with the listen as a whole which may prejudice the approach to the last couple of pieces.
The opening of Sanctuary has a soft and mellow tone, harking back to earlier in Davis' career and, to me, creating images of a nightime city-pan scene in 40s LA. Why does that setting still resonate so strongly in the modern day? From novels to film to RPGs and videogames, LA in the 30s and 40s retains a very definite draw - a strong sense that is incredibly rooted in that one city and not generically in the America of the time, or even the California of the epoch. I guess it is a confluence of factors - the glamour of the birth of Hollywood being one of the big ones. In any case, being moved to think of this swept away any negative worries of what the track might be like and firms it up instead as something that I both like, and which might have soundtrack utility in future. Sure there are electronic keyboard tones there that simply didn't exist in the 40s but the overall impression is far more important to its potential re-use than any worries about historical accuracy. This one short paragraph has had me thinking, engaged, for the whole of the piece. As that runs to 11 minutes that means not a lot of words for the time, but it speaks well to the sense of, well, sanctuary that the tune creates: a safe space for the mind to wander freely. I like this tune a lot, and whilst its star fades a little in the closing moments as the too-bright keys take over the sound a little more than I would like I have no hesitation in pronouncing Sanctuary the best of the Bitches' Brew recordings.
Will that be challenged by Feio, our last piece? I suspect not but we'll see. It starts as a very open piece, with lots of quiet layered onto a few longer, drawn out sounds. I rather like it, but it is not instantly catapulting me into another world of thought and inspiration or demanding that I pay it every heed. It is a little too slow, I think. Whilst I like the sense of space it feels like this one is just empty, almost dead. I catch myself not concentrating on the piece - wandering fingers and eyes having pulled up BBC News stories instead. That is not the intent of these posts, but it does illustrate just how little there is going on at any one point in Feio. Whilst the piece is never silent and, to be fair it does have a consistency to it that makes it work as a whole epic, at any given moment there is just not enough there to be interesting and I find myself lulled into a sleepy, bored state. The sounds there are, warm and enveloping, are pleasant its just lacking anything to elevate it from a nice sound to something you'd want to listen to. Then suddenly it is the end and a creepy voice closes it out, a shudder hit me when it spoke up it was so unexpected.
So, not a strong end, and a bit of a wobble in the middle, but overall a vast improvement on the first disc of Bitches' Brew, enough to restore my faith in the purchase and to see why the album was so lauded. Where next is the question.
Another week has gone by since I gave time over to the first disc in this set, and I am still massively disappointed with it. I am heartened then, when the initial sounds of Spanish Key are really very appealing. The length of the piece concerns me, on past form, and the hour length of these 5 tunes together is what sealed not listening to anything during the week. Now though, it is a bright Sunday morning and I am putting off the thought of having to garden in the brisk October air.
A forceful trumpet, sultry sax and a rhythm that wouldn't feel out of place in noughties electronica is a good introduction though. The addition of synth notes lightens the mood and it is this lightening that makes the first theme change work, the tone of the brass pieces changing to be more of a floating sound, sitting above the continued structure rather than wallowing in amongst it. The threatening percussion fades a little as we approach half-way, and there is a full on tonal shift to a brighter, funkier piece. Oddly, whilst I felt that disc 1 was a child of its time, dated horribly, this piece feels like it was ahead of its and still sits nicely. If I didn't know who I was listening to here, for those stretches when Davis' trumpet is quiet or placed other than front and centre I would be guessing the creators as more likely to be a Ninja Tune affiliate of some kind. What a difference a week makes?
The shuffling nature of the percussion maintains the consistency throughout this track, addressing the worst of the issues I had with Pharaoh's Dance, and the lines and shapes woven on top of that by the keyboards and horns are given license to meander precisely because they have boundaries drawn within which to do so. I cannot escape the feeling that the piece goes too far and too long - everything past about 10 minutes feels unnecessary - but unlike with what I heard last week it does keep me engaged and doesn't stray far from the path in other ways. Its not a complete wash out for Bitches Brew, then.
John McLaughlin stands out on this album because it is sub 5 minutes. Musically it definitely feels like it comes from the same place as Spanish Key, but there is less reliance on horns here - keys and guitars carry the piece instead and half way through I am not sure I have heard Davis' trumpet once. It ends up feeling much of a muchness - too samey throughout to generate any real feeling. It could have been another movement in the prior track (though I am grateful that it wasn't) and probably only survives a cull because of its relative brevity making it a more appropriate inclusion in a shuffle.
There is a nice feel to the start of the third track. Trumpet back to lead the main theme, percussion slowed down giving a more southern bayou feel to things (should that be capitalised?) which the top end has to work to shake off, and does. The horn theme is the most musical we have had on the album to date and this really does feel like a fusion between a more classical jazz with sounds that post-date it because the combination sits well here. Fusion implies a joining, and on the first disc things were simply not linked up right. It feels to me as if the group as a whole maybe learned from that and by this point in the recording sessions had realised the importance of continuity and connections in enabling the freewheeling chop and change that drives the melodies (such as they are). This disc feels a world away from the two tracks that made up the first half of the record.
I've hit a lull though as the midpoint of Miles Runs the Voodoo Down falls into blandness - the horn melodies have gone and whilst there is still continuity of bass the rest of it has gone tits up. Experimentation on the keys overrides anything else that forms part of the piece, like a black hole sucking away any merit. Thankfully the section is gone as suddenly as it arrived but it leaves a sour note for the first time in this listen. There are two more tracks to go, and its another 20 minutes. I realise suddenly that the bland moment may have brought upon a fatigue with the listen as a whole which may prejudice the approach to the last couple of pieces.
The opening of Sanctuary has a soft and mellow tone, harking back to earlier in Davis' career and, to me, creating images of a nightime city-pan scene in 40s LA. Why does that setting still resonate so strongly in the modern day? From novels to film to RPGs and videogames, LA in the 30s and 40s retains a very definite draw - a strong sense that is incredibly rooted in that one city and not generically in the America of the time, or even the California of the epoch. I guess it is a confluence of factors - the glamour of the birth of Hollywood being one of the big ones. In any case, being moved to think of this swept away any negative worries of what the track might be like and firms it up instead as something that I both like, and which might have soundtrack utility in future. Sure there are electronic keyboard tones there that simply didn't exist in the 40s but the overall impression is far more important to its potential re-use than any worries about historical accuracy. This one short paragraph has had me thinking, engaged, for the whole of the piece. As that runs to 11 minutes that means not a lot of words for the time, but it speaks well to the sense of, well, sanctuary that the tune creates: a safe space for the mind to wander freely. I like this tune a lot, and whilst its star fades a little in the closing moments as the too-bright keys take over the sound a little more than I would like I have no hesitation in pronouncing Sanctuary the best of the Bitches' Brew recordings.
Will that be challenged by Feio, our last piece? I suspect not but we'll see. It starts as a very open piece, with lots of quiet layered onto a few longer, drawn out sounds. I rather like it, but it is not instantly catapulting me into another world of thought and inspiration or demanding that I pay it every heed. It is a little too slow, I think. Whilst I like the sense of space it feels like this one is just empty, almost dead. I catch myself not concentrating on the piece - wandering fingers and eyes having pulled up BBC News stories instead. That is not the intent of these posts, but it does illustrate just how little there is going on at any one point in Feio. Whilst the piece is never silent and, to be fair it does have a consistency to it that makes it work as a whole epic, at any given moment there is just not enough there to be interesting and I find myself lulled into a sleepy, bored state. The sounds there are, warm and enveloping, are pleasant its just lacking anything to elevate it from a nice sound to something you'd want to listen to. Then suddenly it is the end and a creepy voice closes it out, a shudder hit me when it spoke up it was so unexpected.
So, not a strong end, and a bit of a wobble in the middle, but overall a vast improvement on the first disc of Bitches' Brew, enough to restore my faith in the purchase and to see why the album was so lauded. Where next is the question.
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