The Perfect Albums V. One

Miles Davis

"Bitch's Brew"

I was reading a bit of my Masters Project the other day—brushing up on my "Taming of the Shrew" for Honors Intro to Literature—and I read a certain combination of words, and some wires in my brain crossed and a shot of music surged into my body, accompanied by a feeling that I had forgotten all about, but that was immediately familiar again. The music that I heard was Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew." The feeling that I felt… that is harder to explain.

Miles had formed a reputation for himself as one of the most progressive musicians in jazz well before the 1969 recording of "Bitch's Brew." His "Kind of Blue" (which may be his best album) is notable among other things because of the quixotic composition process that Davis brought to the record. It is well documented that Davis "wrote" the songs on "Blue" in only the loosest sense. He would take a hint of a melody or a mild suggestion of a key or mode, a couple chords, a few notes, a tempo, a few words about the feeling he wanted… that was it. Then they rolled the tape and the band played. The results are stunningly beautiful, even for the uninitiated into the world of jazz. Any fan of music will attest to the amazing pathos of that record.

But even for its innovation, "Kind of Blue" is still very much jazz in a conventional sense. Davis's trademark on the trumpet was a cool, luscious style and rich tonality. This is never more keenly felt than on "Blue." Simply stated, when one listens to "Kind of Blue" you can tell immediately that your ears are in good hands. Davis is gonna take care of you.

All this to say: "Bitch's Brew" was no "Kid of Blue."

Legend has it that Davis was inspired by Jimi Hendrix, and the wildness of the rock music scene he saw at Woodstock a few months prior to recording. Here we see Davis breaking all the rules, in an almost adolescent way. Imagine an electric bass, and upright bass, three drummers, two or more electric pianos, and a bass clarinet all playing at the same time. Now imagine that Miles called these people together into the studio, not only without ever practicing any of the songs, but often with no clear idea of the song at all. With the prominent rhythm section wailing, rattling, collapsing, resurrecting, exploding, breaking, diving, halting, whimpering, spanking, barking, pouting, and slipping its way along, Davis plays simple yet aggressive melodies over the top, occasionally accompanied by a sax.

What are the results? Frankly, it is a complete mess. If "Blue" makes you feel like it is under control, "Brew" makes you feel like nothing, absolutely nothing is in control. In fact listening to this album is more than anything else like reading the worst parts of Thomas Pynchon's long novels. For those of you who have never been in the guts of one of Pynchon's novels, I will not try to approximate it, but let me say this: his novels are 1000 pages or so and feel like 5,000. Tedious, arrogant, chaotic, difficult, esoteric, and frustrating.

So why on earth is this album under my "Perfect Albums" list. Well, first of all, I put it here for the same reason that I would probably put something from Pynchon's difficult fiction on my "Perfect Novels" list. The work that is demanded of you to listen to the CD is rewarded by rare but breathtaking payoffs. The accumulated effort that is required to grind through the esoteria prepares your mind perfectly—just perfectly—for the moments of brilliance. The dis-ease builds up and builds up and the frustration grows until, unexpectedly, there is a moment of sublime culmination. In fact, there is no other way to get this exact kind of experience with art. There is art like "Kind of Blue" that feels right from the start. But there is also art like "Bitch's Brew" that feels wrong almost all the time.

I liken it to Chuck Yeager's descriptionsof breaking the sound barrier for the first time. Every time anyone got close to the speed of sound, the jet craft would start to shake madly and the pilot would become afraid it might fall apart all together. So the pilots would decelerate and the engineers would go back to work. But after trying and failing several times, Chuck finally just said "to hell with it," and when his jet started to shake itself to pieces, he punched the throttle all the more. Maybe it would come apart, maybe not, but he was determined to find out what it felt like to go faster than sound. What he discovered is that once he hit the speed of sound, the sonic boom would crack through the air and the jet would flatten out, smooth and still like the morning. This is how it feels to work through "Bitch's Brew" and to find those moments of culmination. Is it fun to when you are shaking around, fearing for your life? No. But without that work, you could never get where you want to go.

The first time this album worked for me, I was about twenty-five or so, and I lied on the floor of my family room, placed the speakers of my stereo on the floor beside me pointing at my ears from each side. I was determined to make it all the way through (I believe that I read somewhere that J. Spaceman listed this as one of his favorite albums), so I cranked the volume and let it fly.

The physical discomfort that I felt was measurable, but I stuck with it. And when the clouds broke and I found myself on the mountaintop with the light of God shining on me… well it was really something. Something in fact that I could never have gotten without doing the work of enduring through it. That work, you see, made me ready for the eventual revelation.

It turns out I have had many good experiences with the CD, although none of them has equaled the first time. Interesting note that I cannot fully explain: each time I achieve the white light with this CD it has been at a different point of the recording. Hm.

So when I was reading my MA project the other day, the words I read triggered a neural reaction, and I found myself in the basement of the California State University, Fullerton Library, in the computer lab. My project was in the final deadly throes. The words were thrashing about the pages and pages of notes I was writing from, snapping at the screen, tearing my sentences apart. I was facing a cruel and ruthless deadline, and I simply had no choice but to get the words written and the project done. I would use violence if I had to. I wore headphones and blared music through my portable pre-mp3 CD player. I tried various CD's, but the only two that worked (seriously I couldn't write single stinking word without one of these CD's blaring in my ears) was Medeski Martin and Wood's "Tonic," and Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew." The music was maddening. It nearly drove me crazy, but it was the right kind of crazy. A madness that got me through my project.

And that was the feeling I felt in my office the other day. And I was reminded of what a great and perfect album this is.