Bitches Brew

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Jazz Times July 2017..."The making of Bitches' Brew..."

"Enrico Merlin’s research, as well the 1998 release of the four-CD boxed set The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, have cast important new light on the album’s postproduction process. They show how Macero did not only use tape editing to glue together large musical sections, as on “Circle in the Round” or In a Silent Way, but extended his scope to editing tiny musical segments to create brand-new musical themes. Courtesy of both approaches, “Pharaoh’s Dance” contains an astonishing seventeen edits. [12] Its famous stop-start opening theme was entirely constructed during postproduction, using repeat loops of 15- and 31-second fragments of tape, while thematic micro-edits occur between 8:53 and 9:00 where a one-second-long fragment appearing at 8:39 is repeated five times.

“I had carte blanche to work with the material,” Macero explained. “I could move anything around and what I would do is record everything, right from beginning to end, mix it all down and then take all those tapes back to the editing room and listen to them and say: ‘This is a good little piece here, this matches with that, put this here,’ etc, and then add in all the effects-the electronics, the delays and overlays. [I would] be working it out in the studio and take it back and re-edit it-front to back, back to front and the middle somewhere else and make it into a piece. I was a madman in the engineering room. Right after I’d put it together I’d send it to Miles and ask, ‘How do you like it?’ And he used to say, ‘That’s fine,’ or ‘That’s OK,’ or ‘I thought you’d do that.’ He never saw the work that had to be done on those tapes. I’d have to work on those tapes for four or five weeks to make them sound right.” [13

[muzzer]

Ahhhh the role of technology in the creation of art, is so fascinating. I knew those box sets were a good investment. I’d post a pic if I could.

[Ian Thumwood]

I understand why studio production might be considered as significant as an instrument but the issue of "Bitches Brew" goes beyond that. Effectively Macero was reassembling the material to create something else which did not really happen in real life. On top of that, he manipulated some of the sound during the production process too. I appreciate that post-1950s a lot of music was edited in the studio (I was once told that a famous concert pianist had recorded Chopin bar by bar - I have a feeling it might have been Horowitz) but with jazz the whole process of improvisation is surely abut being in the moment. For this reason, surely a degree of integrity is required or otherwise the whole performance is not really honest.

These days the process has evolved to the extend that the musicians no longer even need to be in the same studio to produce a recorded performance so that any musical reaction is only one way between two sets of musicians.

[Richard Barrett]

Effectively Macero was reassembling the material to create something else which did not really happen in real life.

Was he dead when he did that reassembling?

[Joseph K]

Re: 'Pharaoh's Dance' - I think it does a disservice to its composer, Joe Zawinul, to say that entire new themes were created in post-production. It's also a massive exaggeration to claim post-production in this instance goes far beyond using the studio as another instrument. While I adore the first disk of Bitches Brew, the second disk is also incredible - I'm not sure that there are any edits on 'Miles Runs the Voodoo Down' and the music there is no less incredible. The improvisation is incredible on Bitches Brew, as is the remarkable, heavy textures and wondrous pre- and post- composition. There's nothing else like it.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Then maybe "the studio" should have had credits and royalties. Could have bought a Ferrari. And Miles had "form", going right back to Eddie Vinson...

When you're in a hole, stop digging...

[Joseph K]

Then maybe "the studio" should have had credits and royalties. Could have bought a Ferrari. And Miles had "form", going right back to Eddie Vinson...

When you're in a hole, stop digging...

[Richard Barrett]

Then maybe "the studio" should have had credits and royalties.

The studio is an instrument, not a person.

Speaking for myself: if, when I'm listening to music, I'm thinking about how it was made rather than about what it is, that will be because "what it is" isn't holding my attention for some reason. I do think it's fascinating to discuss the composition/production techniques used on an album like this, but if I'm listening to it they don't spring to mind. Like (I imagine) most people who know this music, I got to know it without being aware of those techniques. The question is: do the results sound musically convincing or do they not?

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, I think you can distance the two "objectively", but if music, and specifically Jazz for me, is centrally about self expression, personal above all, to find that it was more akin to a manufacturing process, it's "author" in this case not even being around (or totally aware) for the panel bolting, paint spray and polishing , then the clocks strike thirteen. But to each their own. And in fairness, if Miles was "determined to keep up", ("a musical mid life crisis", Jack Dejohnette called it), then hanging with Betty and Jimi Hendrix, the kind of "authenticity" I respect was not upermost in his consideration. He wanted a "product" and he got one.

[Joseph K]

Yes, I think you can distance the two "objectively", but if music, and specifically Jazz for me, is centrally about self expression, personal above all, to find that it was more akin to a manufacturing process, it's "author" in this case not even being around (or totally aware) for the panel bolting, paint spray and polishing , then the clocks strike thirteen. But to each their own. And in fairness, if Miles was "determined to keep up", ("a musical mid life crisis", Jack Dejohnette called it), then hanging with Betty and Jimi Hendrix, the kind of "authenticity" I respect was not upermost in his consideration. He wanted a "product" and he got one.

It's difficult to tell what you mean in this post. The scare quotes don't help - when you put them around the word 'author', are you suggesting that Miles wasn't the author? Ok, he wasn't around while Teo performed his role, but he still would have a final say on the matter. It's weird seeing the assertion that Miles was trying to keep up, since as far as I'm concerned, while one might be tempted to simply categorise Bitches Brew as jazz fusion, and while there are influences from rock and funk, it was rather a leap into the unknown. What's not authentic about it? How is it more of a 'product' than, say, Kind of Blue, which has sold more? Are raga-esque half-hour long jams with dissonant chords and dense textures radio friendly?

[Serial_Apologist]

It's difficult to tell what you mean in this post. The scare quotes don't help - when you put them around the word 'author', are you suggesting that Miles wasn't the author? Ok, he wasn't around while Teo performed his role, but he still would have a final say on the matter. It's weird seeing the assertion that Miles was trying to keep up, since as far as I'm concerned, while one might be tempted to simply categorise Bitches Brew as jazz fusion, and while there are influences from rock and funk, it was rather a leap into the unknown. What's not authentic about it? How is it more of a 'product' than, say, Kind of Blue, which has sold more? Are raga-esque half-hour long jams with dissonant chords and dense textures radio friendly?

I think at that time Miles wanted, and was being prompted by CBS, to make his music "blacker" from quasi-political motivations but at the same time more experimental, but he did this, not as were the musicians associated with the AACM by drawing on the classical avant-garde, but by combining free jazz with the rhythms and colours associated with James Brown, while making a big play with display. Whether or not he thought, like the Beatles, he could explore on the basis of his prestige in the musical world at large, Miles never managed to find the successful formula for popularity that went to Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, and it is interesting that following the lengthy lay-off due to ill health from 1975 to 1980 he put himself into the hands of the stylists of the younger generation, including Branford Marsalis, John Scofield and Marcus Miller. Much that (unlike Ian Thumwood) I like the later albums such as Tutu and You're Under Arrest little in the way of experimentation is to be found in most of them, apart from "Decoy", unless the subject of post-production being raised on here is factored into what one might mean by the term experimental. But while the idea of fashioning something aesthetic as well as potentially saleable out of the best he and/or Macero could salvage from studio takes bequethes us the carefully shaped product, the original spontaneity of the process woven into this finished product being rendered secondary, we still have the footage of those live late appearances - Miles was having a good time on stage.

[Joseph K]

I think at that time Miles wanted, and was being prompted by CBS, to make his music "blacker" from quasi-political motivations but at the same time more experimental, but he did this, not as were the musicians associated with the AACM by drawing on the classical avant-garde, but by combining free jazz with the rhythms and colours associated with James Brown, while making a big play with display. Whether or not he thought, like the Beatles, he could explore on the basis of his prestige in the musical world at large, Miles never managed to find the successful formula for popularity that went to Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, and it is interesting that following the lengthy lay-off due to ill health from 1975 to 1980 he put himself into the hands of the stylists of the younger generation, including Branford Marsalis, John Scofield and Marcus Miller. Much that (unlike Ian Thumwood) I like the later albums such as Tutu and You're Under Arrest little in the way of experimentation is to be found in most of them, apart from "Decoy", unless the subject of post-production being raised on here is factored into what one might mean by the term experimental. But while the idea of fashioning something aesthetic as well as potentially saleable out of the best he and/or Macero could salvage from studio takes bequethes us the carefully shaped product, the original spontaneity of the process woven into this finished product being rendered secondary, we still have the footage of those live late appearances - Miles was having a good time on stage.

TBH, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've listened to anything from 80s of Miles. I really ought to rectify that! Starting with the albums you mention.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Well, to me it's akin to say the Raymond Carver backstory, every body was hugely impressed by Carver's short stories, his total economy of style, the lack of any flab or excess in the writing, Carver was the new Chekhov, that good, with the same technique. Then, after Carver's death, it turned out that it was actually his publishing editor who drastically recut Carver's "not economical" prose into shape. This is contested but the concept remains. The point I'd claim here is that Macero was a CENTRAL player (in both senses) in that released album. And Miles was by then hanging out with Hendrix by then who cut and layered albums in a similar way. Multiple overlays. Miles want a product that would keep him abreast, not behind the trend, he said that. He also wanted to make some serious money, that was a constant gripe. I don't think he was that concerned about the *detailed* final form providing Macero would give him one! He certainly did. With Miles at this point I think we can overplay the higher motives.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, to me it's akin to say the Raymond Carver backstory, every body was hugely impressed by Carver's short stories, his total economy of style, the lack of any flab or excess in the writing, Carver was the new Chekhov, that good, with the same technique. Then, after Carver's death, it turned out that it was actually his publishing editor who drastically recut Carver's "not economical" prose into shape. This is contested but the concept remains. The point I'd claim here is that Macero was a CENTRAL player (in both senses) in that released album. And Miles was by then hanging out with Hendrix by then who cut and layered albums in a similar way. Multiple overlays. Miles want a product that would keep him abreast, not behind the trend, he said that. He also wanted to make some serious money, that was a constant gripe. I don't think he was that concerned about the *detailed* final form providing Macero would give him one! He certainly did. With Miles at this point I think we can overplay the higher motives.

While I go along with that to a considerable extent, we shouldn't overlook the fact that he had the British cellist Paul Buckmaster over to stay in his NY apartment in 1972 0r 73, Paul having interested him in Stockhausen's electronic music, or not consider what this might have meant. The interest was not superficial, by all accounts.

[muzzer]

Whether or not he thought, like the Beatles, he could explore on the basis of his prestige in the musical world at large, Miles never managed to find the successful formula for popularity that went to Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, and it is interesting that following the lengthy lay-off due to ill health from 1975 to 1980 he put himself into the hands of the stylists of the younger generation, including Branford Marsalis, John Scofield and Marcus Miller. Much that (unlike Ian Thumwood) I like the later albums such as Tutu and You're Under Arrest little in the way of experimentation is to be found in most of them, apart from "Decoy", unless the subject of post-production being raised on here is factored into what one might mean by the term experimental. But while the idea of fashioning something aesthetic as well as potentially saleable out of the best he and/or Macero could salvage from studio takes bequethes us the carefully shaped product, the original spontaneity of the process woven into this finished product being rendered secondary, we still have the footage of those live late appearances - Miles was having a good time on stage.

I agree that in the 80s he went for the main market but the early 70s material always sounds to me like a big f**k you to pretty much everybody and everything. And he wasn’t well, or less well than usual, during that period I believe. Miles Beyond by Paul Tingen and The Last Miles by George Cole are vamping at me from the bookcase ;)