APRIL, 1970 (41 YEARS AGO) Miles Davis: Bitches Brew is released.

APRIL, 1970 (41 YEARS AGO)
Miles Davis: Bitches Brew is released.
Allmusic 5/5 stars
Robert Christgau (A-)
Penguin Guide to Jazz 4/4 stars
...Pitchfork Media (9.5/10)
Rolling Stone 5/5 stars
Sputnikmusic 5/5 stars
Virgin Encyclopedia 5/5 stars
Zagat Survey 5/5 stars

Bitches Brew is a studio double album by Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album. With the use of these instruments, such as the electric piano and guitar, Davis rejected traditional jazz rhythms in favor of a looser, rock-influenced improvisational style.

Bitches Brew was Davis's first gold record, selling more than half a million copies. Upon release, it received a mixed response, due to the album's unconventional style and revolutionary sound. Later, Bitches Brew gained recognition as one of jazz's greatest albums and a progenitor of the jazz rock genre, as well as a major influence on rock and funk musicians. In 1998, Columbia Records released The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, a four-disc box set that included the original album as well as the studio sessions through February 1970.

Recording sessions took place at Columbia's 30th Street Studio over the course of three days in August 1969. Davis called the musicians to the recording studio on very short notice. A few pieces on Bitches Brew were rehearsed before the recording sessions, but at other times the musicians had little or no idea what they were to record. Once in the recording studio, the players were typically given only a few instructions: a tempo count, a few chords or a hint of melody, and suggestions as to mood or tone. Davis liked to work this way; he thought it forced musicians to pay close attention to one another, to their own performances, or to Davis's cues, which could change at any moment. On the quieter moments of "Bitches Brew", for example, Davis's voice is audible, giving instructions to the musicians: snapping his fingers to indicate tempo, or, in his distinctive whisper, saying, "Keep it tight" or telling individuals when to solo.

Davis composed most of the music on the album. The two important exceptions were the complex "Pharaoh's Dance" (composed by Joe Zawinul) and the ballad "Sanctuary" (composed by Wayne Shorter). The latter had been recorded as a fairly straightforward ballad early in 1968, but was given a radically different interpretation on Bitches Brew. It begins with Davis and Chick Corea improvising on the standard "I Fall in Love too Easily" before Davis plays the "Sanctuary" theme. Then, not unlike Davis's recording of Shorter's "Nefertiti" two years earlier, the horns repeat the melody over and over while the rhythm section builds up the intensity. The issued "Sanctuary" is actually two consecutive takes of the piece.
Mati Klarwein created this artwork for Bitches Brew's gatefold cover.

Despite his reputation as a "cool", melodic improviser, much of Davis's playing on this album is aggressive and explosive, often playing fast runs and venturing into the upper register of the trumpet. His closing solo on "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" is particularly noteworthy in this regard. Davis did not perform on the short piece "John McLaughlin".

There was significant editing done to the recorded music. Short sections were spliced together to create longer pieces, and various effects were applied to the recordings. Enrico Merlin reports:
Bitches Brew also pioneered the application of the studio as a musical instrument, featuring stacks of edits and studio effects that were an integral part of the music. Miles and his producer, Teo Macero, used the recording studio in radical new ways, especially in the title track and the opening track, "Pharaoh's Dance". There were many special effects, like tape loops, tape delays, reverb chambers and echo effects. Through intensive tape editing, Macero concocted many totally new musical structures that were later imitated by the band in live concerts. Macero, who has a classical education and was most likely inspired by the 1930s and 1940s musique concrète experiments, used tape editing as a form of arranging and composition.

"Pharaoh's Dance" contains 19 edits – its famous stop-start opening is entirely constructed in the studio, using repeat loops of certain sections. Later on in the track there are several micro-edits: for example, a one-second-long fragment that first appears at 8:39 is repeated five times between 8:54 and 8:59. The title track contains 15 edits, again with several short tape loops of, in this case, five seconds (at 3:01, 3:07 and 3:12). Therefore, Bitches Brew not only became a controversial classic of musical innovation, it also became renowned for its pioneering use of studio technology.

Though Bitches Brew was in many ways revolutionary, perhaps its most important innovation was rhythmic. The rhythm section for this recording consists of two bassists (one playing bass guitar, the other double bass), two to three drummers, two to three electric piano players, and a percussionist, all playing at the same time. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill explain, "like rock groups, Davis gives the rhythm section a central role in the ensemble's activities. His use of such a large rhythm section offers the soloists wide but active expanses for their solos."

Tanner, Gerow and Megill further explain that
"the harmonies used in this recording move very slowly and function modally rather than in a more tonal fashion typical of mainstream jazz.... The static harmonies and rhythm section's collective embellishment create a very open arena for improvisation. The musical result flows from basic rock patterns to hard bop textures, and at times, even passages that are more characteristic of free jazz."

The solo voices heard most prominently on this album are the trumpet and the soprano saxophone, respectively of Miles and Wayne Shorter. Notable also is Bennie Maupin's ghostly bass clarinet, which was perhaps the first use of the instrument in jazz not heavily indebted to pioneer Eric Dolphy.

The technology of recording, analog tape, disc mastering and inherent recording time constraints (i.e., bandwidth) had, by the late sixties, expanded beyond previous limitations and sonic range for the stereo, vinyl album: Bitches Brew reflects this. In it are found long-form performances which encompass entire improvised suites with rubato sections, tempo changes or the long, slow crescendo more common to a symphonic orchestral piece or Indian raga form than the three-minute rock song. Starting in 1969, Davis' concerts included some of the material that would become Bitches Brew.

Bitches Brew was a turning point in modern jazz. Davis had already spearheaded two major jazz movements – cool and modal jazz – and was about to initiate another major change (like Davis' album Filles de Kilimanjaro, the album's cover also sports the phrase "Directions In Music By Miles Davis" above the title.) Some critics at the time characterized this music as simply obscure and "outside", which recalls Duke Ellington's description of Davis as "the Picasso of jazz." Some jazz fans and musicians felt the album was crossing the limits, or was not jazz at all. One critic writes that "Davis drew a line in the sand that some jazz fans have never crossed, or even forgiven Davis for drawing." Bob Rusch recalls, "this to me was not great Black music, but I cynically saw it as part and parcel of the commercial crap that was beginning to choke and bastardize the catalogs of such dependable companies as Blue Note and Prestige.... I hear it 'better' today because there is now so much music that is worse."

On the other hand, many fans, critics, and musicians see the records as an important, vital release. In a 1997 interview, drummer Bobby Previte sums up his feelings about Bitches Brew: "Well, it was groundbreaking, for one. How much groundbreaking music do you hear now? It was music that you had that feeling you never heard quite before. It came from another place. How much music do you hear now like that?" The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave Bitches Brew a four-star rating (out of four stars), describing the recording as "one of the most remarkable creative statements of the last half-century, in any artistic form. It is also profoundly flawed, a gigantic torso of burstingly noisy music that absolutely refuses to resolve itself under any recognized guise."In 2003, the album was ranked number 94 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Along with this accolade, the album has been ranked at or near the top of several other magazines' "best albums" lists in disparate genres.

ON THIS DATE (39 YEARS AGO) April 3, 1972 - The Mar y Sol festival ends.

ON THIS DATE (39 YEARS AGO)
April 3, 1972 - The Mar y Sol festival ends. The final box score: four persons dead (including one sixteen-year-old boy who was hacked to death while lying in his sleeping bag); a general lack of sufficient food supplies; a general abundance of brutal Puerto Rican sun; and even after the festival, a major sn...afu in which hundreds of Americans are stranded at the San Juan airport. Promoter Cooley calls the festival a success, but Richard Kimball of KMET-FM in L.A. sums it up this way: "It was a f****** drag."

In general many critics considered this festival a disaster. Several accidental deaths, a murder, rapes, etc. But New York Times reporter Les Ledbetter printed a column on April 9 entitled "It was a success -- ask the people"

LIST OF PERFORMERS
Alice Cooper
Allman Brothers Band
Ashton, Gardner and Dyke
BB King
Banda del K-rajo
Bang
Billy Joel
Black Sabbath
Bloodrock
Brownsville Station
Cactus
Dave Brubeck w/ Gerry Mulligan
David Peel
Dr. John
Elephants Memory Band
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Faces (w/ Rod Stewart & Ronnie Wood)
Flash Cadillac
Fleetwood Mac
Fran Ferrer
Goose Creek Symphony
J. Geils Band
Jonathan Edwards
John Baldry
Herbie Mann
Mahavishnu Orchestra w/ John McLaughlin
Malo
Michael Overly
Nitzinger
Osibisa
Poco
Pot Liquor
Roberta Flack
Rubber Band
Savoy Brown
Stonehenge

"Mar y Sol was Puerto Rico's Woodstock Nation, except that by 1972 people were beginning to lose faith in the peace and love schtick". ~ Jorge Luis Medina, The San Juan Star

The dark eyes of violence were always staring over your shoulder. Gangs of Puerto Ricans roamed the grounds in varying shades of belligerence, many carrying knives and apparently itchy fingers. It was like an ugly New York City against a postcard backdrop.
- Barry Kramer, CREEM Magazine, July 1972

"Quite ironically, the festival's major drawing card, old sun, readily proved to be one of its most formidable villains. Even the most fanatical sun-worshipers soon found themselves crawling for cover after only minimal exposure; the medical tent reported that a vast majority of cases handled related directly to this torturous sun blaze".
- Barry Kramer, CREEM Magazine, July 1972

"More than once during the three days, in fact we were to feel like a yellowing photograph in Life Magazine; a living theatre re-enactment of hippiedom 1968 staged for the benefit of curious Puerto Ricans."
- Barry Kramer, CREEM Magazine, July 1972

The MAR Y SOL festival was produced by Atlanta's legendary promoter Alex Cooley. Cooley had produced 2 Atlanta Pop Festivals and the Texas Intl. Pop Festival prior to MAR Y SOL.

The tickets were $15, but most people chose one of the packages which included round trip air fare, ground transportation, camping facilities & tickets.

The chosen date for the festival was the weekend of Easter, or Semana Santa (Holy Week) as is called in Puerto Rico. Shortly after the announcement of the dates of the festival, the government turned against Alex Cooley, who wasn't aware at that time how serious Semana Santa is in the island.

After this, everything went downhill, companies/organizations that were supporting him at first started to turn their backs. Rumors started to spread about whether or not the festival would take place due to the strong legal problems Alex Cooley was having with the government. His lawyer helped him fight back, but that didn't change the fact that there was a lot of people against the festival.

This also affected the list of bands. Some bands opted not to fly down to the island to avoid trouble, forcing Cooley to bring other bands that were not on the promo like David Peel, Mahavishnu Orchestra and others.

On Monday March 27th people started arriving at the area, approx. 400. By the end of the day there were about 5,000. By the next day (Tuesday 28th) the area started looking like some kind of hamlet. All kinds of merchants were there too as well as security guards and even undercover agents.

On Wednesday 29th the judge José Rivera Barreras issued an injunction to stop the festival based on evidence from the Police Drug Division on the selling of Marihuana and LSD pills. Groups of teenagers (both locals and visitors) were planning a protest in front of Fortaleza (Official Residence). If that wasn't enough, on that same day one of the visitors, Willie Wardlaw (East Orange, New Jersey) was found dead (drowned on the beach). By then there were approx. 10,000 people. Still the question remained, "will there be a festival?" By Friday 31st there were about 25,000 people.

Saturday April 1st. The long waited festival started at 3:00 pm with local group Rubber Band. The highlights of the day were B.B. King & Allman Brothers Band.

THE BIRTH OF BILLY JOEL’s CAREER
The birth of Billy's career - Most people don't know this but it was at this festival that doors were opened for Billy Joel.

"Columbia records took notice of Billy Joel at the Mar Y Sol Pop Festival in Puerto Rico... Billy played in rainy conditions, and earned some major standing ovations from the crowd".
- Barry, New York, NC

Still not sure if he played on the first or the second day (some reviews say it was April 1st while band member Larry Russell and other eye witness say it was on Sunday the 2nd).

"Before Mar Y Sol nobody had ever heard of Billy Joel, outside of the New York area, and even there, nobody cared about Billy Joel. But as the sun broke through the clouds at Mar y Sol, Billy Joel had the place reeling and rolling".
- Hank Bordowitz (from the book Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man)


"It was a moment I'll never forget. He had the crowd in the palm of his hands. He had never had that kind of command of an audience before. That was the first moment that he took command of the stage"
- Irwin Mazur, Billy's first manager (from the book Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man)

Sunday April 2nd. After dealing with some technical problems the music continued at 1:00 am. Crowd size grew to approximately 50,000 by now. Some highlights of the 2nd day were ELP & Alice Cooper.

Aside from music and other things normally seen in festivals, this was also a day of tragedy. Two more people drowned. Locals Vanessa Rivera and Celestino Santiago, both from Fajardo. Also a murder was committed. Visitor Christopher S. Gilligan from St. Croix (16) was killed by a local with a knife and a machete.

Monday April 3rd.

Some highlights of the 3rd day were Nitzinger, Cactus, Faces & J. Geils Band.

The Black Sabbath deception - One of the main attractions was going to be the british band Black Sabbath, scheduled to play at the very end of the festival. Unfortunately this never happened. They made it to the island, but never to the festival.

"Black Sabbath had flown over from Miami for the MAR Y SOL festival. The crew arrived at the site as usual, before the band did. However, as it drew closer to the time for the band to leave for the gig, it became clear that they would never make it, at least on land. The road leading to the festival ground was grid locked. Spock Wall [producer] used a payphone to call Patrick Meehan [producer], who was with the band at the Redondo Beach Hotel, to warn him of the traffic problems. Meehan told him to expect the band.

Rod Stewart (w/ Faces) @ Mar y Sol, April 3rd.
Their only chance would have been to hire a helicopter, but none was available. Meehan then decided that the band should admit defeat. They had nothing to lose as they had been paid in advance, unlike many of the other acts on the bill." (from the book How BLACK was our SABBATH)


The end, the escape & ...life at the airport:

The end of the festival was also the beginning of a new adventure for promoter Alex Cooley who found out he was going to be arrested anytime soon by the police.

"The last night of the festival. Of course, there was a lot of Puerto Ricans that DID help us. Just people, Not organizations but people that were helping us. And a guy who was working in the festival, came over to me, the last night of the festival, and said they'd issued a warrant in San Juan and they were coming to arrest me. So they smuggled me out of there with a Volkswagen bus. I got in the bus and they put things on top of me and they took me to the airport and there were people at the airport that were very sympathetic towards this and they let them.... of course you'd never be able to do this now - they let them drive the Volkswagen out on to the runway. So I got out of the Volkswagen and got directly on the plane. So that's how I got out of San Juan, out of Puerto Rico. That was the first time I had to leave a country like that before, so it was quite an experience." - Alex Cooley

But the music wasn't over yet, while Cooley was being smuggled out, already Tuesday April 4th, the last band to play, Osibisa, went on stage very early in the morning (aprox. 3 am).

"For the four days I was at the Mar y Sol Pop Festival, the only thing that made any sense to me was the music" - Arthur Levy (Zoo World rock magazine)

"Hundreds of young people from the United States mainland were stranded in San Juan today. Airport officials said that the situation could get worse tomorrow when most of the 30,000 youths who attended the weekend Mar y Sol pop festival tried to get home.
Many of them had no return tickets or money. They said that return transportation had been arranged and paid for in advance, but there was no sign of it. "
- Don Heckman, New York Times (April 4, 1972)

"People had begun making the long trek back to San Juan and points beyond after the first day of the festival, but even this steady exodus didn't avert the Tuesday tie-up at the airport. Many of the people who had purchased the $149 festival package found that their return plane tickets were good only for stand-by, thus effectively leaving the stranded until auxiliary flights could be arranged."
- Barry Kramer, CREEM Magazine, July 1972

The authorities took care of all the people stranded at the airport. Tents were set just outside the main terminal by the the Ports Authority and extra festival vibes were offered. Elephant's Memory (one of the bands at the festival) came out and played for the people at the airport. The Red Cross, airlines & the Department of Social Services provided food, water & medical attention. Pan American Airlines provided the flights for about 3,000 people who attended the festival from outside Puerto Rico. This took several days.

ON THIS DAY (February 11, 1994) - First Beatles' "Reunion" Session

The historic first Beatles reunion session, when they began work on Free As A Bird, takes place on this day at Paul McCartney’s Mill Studios in Sussex, England. (The Mill is a converted windmill on a hill, overlooking English farmland and the English Channel.)

Following the initial recordings, Paul, George, Ringo, and Jeff Lynne visit a local pub. About the recording sessions themselves, from Paul: “I played these songs (of John Lennon’s) to the other guys, warning Ringo to have a hanky ready. I fell in love with Free As A Bird. I thought I would have loved to have worked with John on that. I like the melody, it’s got strong chords, and it really appealed to me. In the end we decided to do it very simply. It’s Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr during the recording of the new Beatles songs for The Beatles Anthology-crazy really, because when you think about a new Beatles record, it is impossible, because John is not around. So I invented a little scenario; he’s gone away on holiday and he’s just rung us up and he says, ‘Just finish this track for us, will you? I’m sending the cassette...I trust you.’ That was the key thing, ‘I trust you, just do your stuff on it.’ I told this to the other guys and Ringo was particularly pleased, and he said, ‘Ahh, that’s great!’ John hadn’t filled in the middle eight section of the demo, so we wrote a new section for that, which, in fact, was one of the reasons for choosing the song. It allowed us some input.”