Bitches Brew - Innovations

Innovations

Bitches Brew has a kind of searching quality because Miles was onto the process of discovering this new music and developing it.

Though Bitches Brew was in many ways revolutionary, perhaps its most important innovation was rhythmic. The rhythm section for this recording consists of two bassists (one playing bass guitar, the other double bass), two to three drummers, two to three electric piano players, and a percussionist, all playing at the same time. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill explain, "like rock groups, Davis gives the rhythm section a central role in the ensemble's activities. His use of such a large rhythm section offers the soloists wide but active expanses for their solos."

Tanner, Gerow and Megill further explain that

"the harmonies used in this recording move very slowly and function modally rather than in a more tonal fashion typical of mainstream jazz.... The static harmonies and rhythm section's collective embellishment create a very open arena for improvisation. The musical result flows from basic rock patterns to hard bop textures, and at times, even passages that are more characteristic of free jazz."

The solo voices heard most prominently on this album are the trumpet and the soprano saxophone, respectively of Miles and Wayne Shorter. Notable also is Bennie Maupin's ghostly bass clarinet, which was perhaps the first use of the instrument in jazz not heavily indebted to pioneer Eric Dolphy.

The technology of recording, analog tape, disc mastering and inherent recording time constraints had, by the late sixties, expanded beyond previous limitations and sonic range for the stereo, vinyl album Bitches Brew reflects this. In it are found long-form performances which encompass entire improvised suites with rubato sections, tempo changes or the long, slow crescendo more common to a symphonic orchestral piece or Indian raga form than the three-minute rock song. Starting in 1969, Davis' concerts included some of the material that would become Bitches Brew.