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Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (Legacy Edition - CD / DVD Combo)
CD DetailsArtist: Miles Davis Edition: Music CD Audio: English (Unknown) Format: Deluxe Edition, Extra tracks, Original recording remastered CD Release Date: 2010-08-31 Music Label: Sony Legacy Product features: - DAVIS MILES BITCHES BREW: LEGACY EDITION (2CD+DVD)
Soundtracks: Music CD 1- Pharaoh's Dance
- Bitches Brew
- Spanish Key
- John McLaughlin
Music CD 2- Miles Runs The Voodoo Down
- Sanctuary
- Spanish Key (alternate take)
- John McLaughlin (alternate take)
- Miles Runs The Voodoo Down (single)
- Spanish Key (single)
- Great Expectations (single)
- Little Blue Frog (single)
Music CD 3- Directions (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- Miles Runs The Voodoo Down (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- Bitches Brew (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- Agitation (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- I Fall In Love Too Easily (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- Sanctuary (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- It s About That Time (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
- The Theme (Copenhagen concert of 11/4/69)
Music reviews of Bitches Brew (Legacy Edition - CD / DVD Combo)Music Review: Worth it for the DVD alone Rating: 4 Stars
This review is for the DVD only. The music on the CDs has been written about extensively for 40 years but the few out-takes are great discoveries from the vaults.
The DVD is a satisfying 70 minutes long and encompasses an entire performance by the Miles Davis Quintet of November 1969, in Copenhagen. The public wouldn't hear the recorded Bitches Brew material for several more months. At this time Miles's band consisted of Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano sax, Chick Corea on Fender Rhodes, Dave Holland on acoustic bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Miles himself on trumpet. This is an artist in the midst of a great transformation. Gone are the suits of respectable jazzmen of the mid-1960s and in are the clothes of the hippy generation but not to the degree that would come in the following years when Miles would adopt his Sly Stone-type look. The music is almost entirely original, with only a short performance "I Fall In Love Too Easily" making it into the set. The only electric instrument present is the Fender Rhodes, which Chick Corea is becoming comfortable with at this point. This performance is a taste of what's to come in the next few months. This seems relatively tame compared to the Live at the Fillmore East from March 7th, 1970. That's why this is such a great document: A well-recorded video performance of a band that was changing every few months. The Isle of Wight concert from the next summer is even more unbridled, albeit with a few changes in the band.
The video quality is very good. The sound is good, except that the bass is mostly absent. It sticks out in some places but it's hard to hear (sorry Dave Holland fans). Overall it's a great presentation. The performance is top notch. A transitional step into Miles' electric age. This would be worth it for the DVD alone.
I did some casual comparisons of the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions CDs versus this. The differences were not vast. They both sound very good. The Bonus DVD and the (2) out-takes in this set make it worthwhile and a good buy. The "super deluxe collector's edition" coming out later this month looks enticing but not for the cash. This seems to be the best bargain. I'm hoping that the 3rd CD in the collector's edition set is released on its own in the future.
More Bitches Brew (Legacy Edition - CD / DVD Combo) free music reviews: 1 2
Description of Bitches Brew (Legacy Edition - CD / DVD Combo)This Legacy Edition celebrates the 40th Anniversary of one of the most remarkable albums in Miles Davis' career and jazz history in general. Originally released in 1970, Bitches Brew became Davis' first gold album. This 40th Anniversary 3-disc package offers the original album on 2 CDs plus rare bonus audio material and a DVD of the entire previously unreleased Copenhagen performance from November 4, 1969. The revolution was recorded: in 1969 Bitches Brew sent a shiver through a country already quaking. It was a recording whose very sound, production methods, album-cover art, and two-LP length all signaled that jazz could never be the same. Over three days anger, confusion, and exhilaration had reigned in the studio, and the sonic themes, scraps, grooves, and sheer will and emotion that resulted were percolated and edited into an astonishingly organic work. This Miles Davis wasn't merely presenting a simple hybrid like jazz-rock, but a new way of thinking about improvisation and the studio. And with this two-CD reissue (actually, this set is a reissue of the original set plus one track, perfect for the fan who's not so overwhelmed as to need the four-CD Complete Bitches Brew box), the murk of the original recording is lifted. The instruments newly defined and brightened, the dark energy of the original comes through as if it were all fresh. Joe Zawinul and Bennie Maupin's roles in the mix have been especially clarified. With a bonus track of "Feio"--a Wayne Shorter composition recorded five months later that serves both as a warm-down for Bitches Brew and a promise of Weather Report to come--this is crucial listening. --John F. Szwed Bitches Brew was a shot across the bow of jazz insularity, and, much like the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper before it, it drew upon elements both inside and outside the mainstream to fashion an avant-garde, yet extremely influential, take on popular music's relation to modernism, and vice versa. As such, Miles Davis became a lightning rod for jazz's transformation (or corruption as some diehards insist), and by mixing the fundamental elements of collective improvisation with fulminating dance rhythms, psychedelic electric textures, polytonal harmonies and a freely inflected brand of blues phrasing (as reflected in his own Kind of Blue-brand of modalism and the parallel directions of Hendrix, Cream, Sly Stone, James Brown, and Marvin Gaye), Davis signaled a sea-change in jazz. However, producer Teo Macero's spooky, compressed mix tends to suck all the air out of the room, emphasizing the often static nature of Harvey Brooks's bedrock Fender bass heartbeats, while obscuring the complex polytonal/polyrhythmic web of volatile harmonies, colliding cross-rhythms and contrasting melodic lines. Bitches Brew is a modern jazz masterpiece screaming for a critical reassessment (and a re-mix), but nothing can obscure the crafty tension and release of Davis's turn over a "Sex Machine"-styled ostinato on "Spanish Key," nor the spatial collective "&mysterioso" and epic breadth of the title tune. --Chip Stern
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