As the month winds down it means we're wrapping up this January jazz excursion. The exercise was never meant to be all encompassing of the genre, since doing it proper justice could justifiably take the remainder of the year. Perhaps another favorite or two of mine will meander through in the future, but for now, we're leaving off with a record that continues to awe and confound me.

Jazz Up Your January Week 4

Today:
The artist: Miles Davis
Weapon of choice: Trumpet
Recorded: August 19–21, 1969
Released: March 30, 1970
Album: Bitches Brew

Given the abundance of incredible musicians, it feels cruel leaving so many out of Jazz Up Your January. The same could be said for albums from today's artist. Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, In a Silent Way are just a few directions you could take when trying to highlight the man, the myth, the legend: Miles Davis. I'm going with one that almost always prevents me from immediately listening to anything else: Bitches Brew.

The first time I heard Davis' still ahead of its time 1970 epic, I was a high schooler whose musical tastes ranged from Eminem to Pink Floyd, Beck to Phish. I did not "get" Bitches Brew. At all. Perhaps due to, but more likely despite, the mind-altering substance(s) I was on, the 94 minutes of whatever this was didn't take. I wouldn't even approach it again for some time. It wasn't until years later when some configuration of stars aligned and left me bewildered in amazement. 

For a man who never musically stood still, the lines are blurred from one era of Davis' work to the next. But after being fully transitioned into what is dubbed his "electric" period on 1969's In a Silent Way, the follow-up some eight months later made it clear that the beautiful IASW was merely the trumpeter dipping his toes in the fusion water. Bitches Brew was those appendages emerging with radioactivity. 

It feels futile to use words to express the sounds put forth on what was then a controversial release for many jazz purists. But I'll try a few. A haunting mystery pervades the album. It's grooving, dark, and psychedelic. It's funk and a fusion statement. It's the summoning of the spirits. For frame of reference, it's also worth noting that the three-day recording session began the day after Woodstock ended while Abbey Road was released a month thereafter. John McLaughlin, guitarist on this and a handful of other Davis albums, described Bitches Brew as "Picasso in sound...It was Miles painting with music and we were all his brushes." 

It most certainly won't be for everyone. But for me, it is the musical embodiment of the journey equaling the destination.