Released February 8, 2011 Label Music on Vinyl | Length 59:44 Release date 8 February 2011 | |
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Recorded July 5, 1969, at the Newport Jazz Festival & August 29, 1970, at the Isle of Wight Festival Producer Original Recordings Produced by Teo Macero. Produced for Release by Richard Seidel and Michael Cuscuna Bitches Brew Live(2011) Live in Europe 1967 The Bootleg Series Vol. 1(2011) Genres Jazz fusion, Avant-garde music Similar Miles Davis albums, Jazz fusion albums | ||
Bitches Brew Live is a live album by Miles Davis. The album was released in February 2011, and contains material compiled from two concert performances. Most of the songs on the album originally appeared on Bitches Brew. The first three tracks were recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1969, nine months before release of Bitches Brew, while the rest of the album was recorded at 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. The three cuts from Newport -- "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," "Sanctuary," and "It's About That Time/The Theme"—are previously unreleased. This recording marks the first known time that "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" was professionally recorded. The final six cuts appeared on the box set Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection, but have not been widely circulated.
Contents
Personnel
The band on the tracks recorded at Newport includes Davis, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette. Wayne Shorter missed this date because of traffic into Newport, so the group performed as a quartet. The group for the Isle of Wight concert featured Davis, Corea, Holland, DeJohnette, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on RMI Electronic Piano, and percussionist Airto Moreira.
Critical reception
AllMusic editor Thom Jurek deemed Bitches Brew Live "essential" for "Davis fans", writing that "it's inspired, full of surprise twists and turns, and showcases the artist at a high point of both creativity and energy." Jurek praised the band members' performances and wrote of Davis' playing, "Despite electricity and the beginning of the vamp style he would perfect later, his trademark lyricism as a soloist is ever present." David Fricke from Rolling Stone said, "Davis was moving – and documenting that motion – faster than most folks, rock or jazz, in that crowd realized." Andy Gill of The Independent commented that the concerts featured on the album "capture Davis on the cusp of creating another jazz revolution" and described its music as "jazz reconstituting after meltdown, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis: free-wheeling, edgy, unpredictable and coruscating, and about as hot as this legend of cool ever got."
Los Angeles Times writer Chris Barton remarked that "this album could be the choice for anyone who's heard all the (justified) hype and acclaim behind the jazz-meets-rock amalgam 'Bitches Brew' but hasn't been able to crack its dark and sometimes thorny code", adding that "Along with the six-disc 'Cellar Door Sessions 1970,' this recording beautifully showcases the fire-breathing power of Davis' band onstage." Despite noting "other documents—particularly Live at the Fillmore East—that’ll give you a similar, and perhaps better, experience", Matthew Fiander of PopMatters believed the 1969 concert set "shows the lean power under [Bitches Brew]'s hefty atmosphere" while calling the album "a document meant to show the evolution of Davis’s electric sound, and it does that well."
Track listing
All pieces were written by Miles Davis, except where noted.
Personnel (Tracks 1-3) July 5, 1969, at the Newport Jazz Festival
Personnel (Tracks 4-9) August 29, 1970, at the Isle of Wight Festival
Production
Songs
Miles Runs the Voodoo Down10:27
Sanctuary3:58
It's About That Time / The Theme9:45