New Bitches Brew handbook

Miles Davis’ 1969 ‘Bitches Brew’ album beautifully fused together jazz and rock music to create a revolutionary new sound. 

Miles, creator of effortless jazz cool, stood at the precipice staring irrelevance in the face in the wake of younger dynamic musicians. Rock music was dominating the American consciousness. America was quaking under the pressure of change and domestic upheaval. Miles went into the studio with super talented musicians like guitarist John McLaughlin and soulful Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul along with his ‘Lost Band’ including Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette and more plus producer Teo Macero. What resulted was the brilliant, deep and dark power of ‘Bitches Brew,’ a game-changer recording widely seen as one of the most astonishing albums ever made, decrying both jazz and rock yet heavy with both.

Now, composer, musician and critic George Grella Jr. has produced a new short book on ‘Bitches Brew’ as part of Bloomsbury Press’ 33 1/3 Series about popular music. He argues that the album is, “an absolute document of a moment in culture that sharply, even brutally, seperates what had come before from what might still come after.”

In nearly 120 pages he analyses Miles’ attitude, new directions, multi faceted cultural importance, and of course the music plus notes and bibliography.