Anything similar to Bitches Brew?
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Topic: Anything similar to Bitches Brew?
Posted By: seb2112
Subject: Anything similar to Bitches Brew?
Date Posted: 11 Jul 2011 at 6:34pm
| Now a lot of people call Bitches Brew the first fusion album because of it's use of electric instruments, but it in no way sounds like the meeting of jazz and rock from which fusion takes its name like mahavishnu, passport or nucleus do. Bitches Brew is its own thing... ad I want more! Did any other artists follow in Mile's soni footsteps and create something similar? I don't enjoy any other Miles record, not even the albums that usually get lumped in with BB as part of that era of his music like jack Johnson, on the corner or in a silent way, so I'm left with only the one record to quench my thirst. Can anyone recommand anything with a somewhat similar feel to this all-time classic? |
Replies:
Posted By: dreadpirateroberts
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 9:33am
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Have been thinking about this and trying to come up with something and its hard. Someone with more knowledge will be able to help, but for me, I can't think of anything quite like it. Certainly tonnes of albums have been influenced, but not many seem to do what Bithes Brew does. Perhaps start with one of the box sets, which increase things to 4 cds or more, including outtakes that are very similar in feel. The Miles album Live Evil maybe. Maybe. ------------- We are men of action. Lies do not become us. http://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/dreadpirateroberts%28member%29.aspx?reviews=all/" rel="nofollow - Reviews... |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 10:18am
Might like this: ------------- 
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Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 11:55am
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Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 2:18pm
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Honestly, Herbie Hancock's albums "Mwandishi", "Crossings", and "Sextant" all were made with the Bitches Brew "spirit". Those albums are probably the closest to the BB sound you will find ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm |
Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 3:59pm
I got the 4CD Boxset and honestly, didn't really get into any of the extra material. On LIVE EVIL, I really enjoy Funky Tonk, so that adds 23 minutes of Brew-esque material, but I didn't enjoy the other tracks.
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dreadpirateroberts wrote:Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 4:02pm
I went through Hancock's whole discography and didn't really enjoy anything. To my ears it sounds like an instrumental version of Elton John, it doesnt have that heavy, evil, foreboading machine of doom feel I love from Bitche's Brew
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 4:09pm
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Posted By: Abraxas
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 4:36pm
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You won't find a carbon-copy of Bitches Brew anywhere. But I think you should insist with listening more to the Mwandishi albums, In a Silent Way by Miles, as well as Big Fun and Get Up With It. Also, Weather Report's debut and I Sing the Body Electric. Electric Byrd by Donald Byrd is a good choice too. Emergency! by Tony Williams Lifetime isn't really similar stylistically to Bitches, but it's an earlier "jazz rock" record that might be worth checking out. Raw rockish jams played by innovative jazz musicians.
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 4:56pm
I'm already into Lifetime, although I find them quite hit and miss
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Posted By: Abraxas
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2011 at 5:04pm
Sorry man, but I really don't believe you. 'I Sing the Body Electric' is anything but smooth. And while I can understand that you can't get into Miles other stuff and Hancock, which are indeed no easy affairs, try to find the "Bitches Brew-substance" in those records and you'll probably be able to enjoy those records more. Of course, if you've had enough of them, fine, but seriously those are the records that you should check out.
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 5:37am
I'm going to mention Vossabrygg one more time. It's the only thing that has been suggested so far you haven't tried. 
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2011 at 1:40pm
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Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 5:36am
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[QUOTE]
Now a lot of people call Bitches Brew the first fusion album because of it's use of electric instruments,
[QUOTE]
We went through this debate 10 years ago at Prog Archives, and if anybody cares to do some research then this statement falls apart. MIles Davis took an underground music making it more popular by taking it temporarily overground to big audiences. The second episode of the Jazz Britannia series on BBC TV a few years back suggested jazz rock fusion goes back to ~63 with the likes of Graham Bond and Georgie Fame - which I find is pushing it . (Indeed when did the genre of rock get separated from rock'n'roll?). Stuart Nicholson in his excellent book on the subject, Jazz Rock: A History reviews American jazz rock pre-1965 - the Miles Davis chapter is several into the book.
I suspect Miles davis was too impatient to record the same sort of music twice, but I did have a go trying find something similar to Bitches, and one of the belatedly issued live at Fillmore recorded about the time of Bitches' releases, may be as close as you can get..
I think after MIles' death Tony Williams gathered a number of former Davis sidemen together for a MIles Tribute, with Wallace Rooney taking MIles role.
Vossabrygg is supposed to be Bitches Brew influenced, but with the several of musicans involved having said Miles was a godfather to nu.fusion, then it is tless surprising that this is a nu.fusion take.
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 4:51pm
Ok let's word it like this then. Although Bitches Brew started fusion, it has little to do with the bands that would later popularize the term FUSION by playing jazz-rock.
And Vossabrygg did not impress me. Although it is similar to bitches brew, to me at least, it sounds amateurish in it's feeble attempt to re-create the same atmosphere
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Posted By: Abraxas
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 4:56pm
| ^of course that Bitches Brew has nothing to do with "actual fusion". Davis mainly relied in improvisation simplifying things, so that's why I and others say that early Weather Report and early Hancock are the most similar fusion acts to Davis. They also followed Davis' improvisational idea. |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 8:05pm
| Why has BB nothing to do with actual fusion? That is new to me. |
Posted By: Kazuhiro
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 8:13pm
Perhaps, I think that Miles Davis created music by the dimension that exceeds even the subgenre. 
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 8:46pm
well, NOTHING is a slight exageration, but the fact that we're having a hard time finding anything similar is a good indication that the average fusion band in the 70's didn't follow the basic archetypes set by Bitches Brew
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Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: 22 Jul 2011 at 10:09pm
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We didn't have a hard time finding similar stuff, it was you who rejected all those good recommendations.
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 1:00am
First off, I'd want to say that that when BB was released, it was not called fusion, but jazz-rock..the word fusion came a little later, 74 or 75 if I remember well.
And just because we can't find something closely similar to BB doesn't mean much (name me one album that is similar to St Pepper, Zoso (Zep IV), or In The Court Of Crimson King (not counting Poseidon).... none right???
First, such iconic albums were so highly regarded, that no-one would've dared really approaching BB in terms of copying... Aesthetically I think most artistes back then would've committed suicide by duplicating it, except maube Miles himself.... And when one knows how he hated to stagnate ... (I mean even the twin-sister album Big Fun (recorded in the same months, sometimes even the same sessions, but released three years later, is completely different, including Indian instruments)...
Sooo even the numerous collabs that did play on BB just inspired themselves of where BB left things at >>> Remember there was a whole new continent to explore back then, so no-one would've thought of duplicating exactly the sound (which was most likely a spur-of-the-moment thing
Despite this, many trad-jazz musos jumped on the jazz-rock bandwagon (not only Don Byrd for ex, but Sonny Rollins, etc...).... and the public wasn't fooled, for a minute.... Ethiopian Knights , although excellent, most likely didn't achieve a tenth of BB's sales back then, but even less so nowadays... because it's just kind of forgotten by everyone but a few of us irreductibles/ inveterates....
------------- my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....  |
Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 8:39am
Know that I do appreciate the effort of anyone who attempted to make me discover a new band/artist.
How I got my IPOD to 5000 songs with my pickyness I will never know...
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 8:43am
I agree with everything you said. My point is simply that although BB was fusion/jazz-rock's starting point, in retrospect, it doesn't sound like the typical sound the 70's band later developped into traditional, typical jazz fusion. It's not a bad thing, it just means that when one has a craving for BB styled music, you don't have a whole lot of albums to turn to.
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Posted By: Abraxas
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 10:39am
I was referring stylistically speaking, and "actual fusion" I meant the popular fusion wave of Mahavishnu, mid/late Weather Report, RtF and Hancock's Headhunters, amongst others. I'm not denying that BItches Brew was like the main factor for all those things to happen, but one really can't point out something from Mahavishnu on Bitches Brew, except the guitar lines.
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Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 12:09pm
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^ Agreed, but that doesn't mean "nothing to do" either. I'll come back with a recommendation in a minute, to bring the thread on topic. :D |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 12:38pm
 you permission denied error  |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 2:34pm
Retro-jazz rock!!!  
Man this was enjoyable.... Could be my best 2011 release with VdGG. ------------- my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones.... |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: 23 Jul 2011 at 6:04pm
Tortoise meets Miles meets Ash Ra Tempel 
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Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 9:11am
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Posted By: Stooge
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 11:12am
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^ ^ Never heard them before. Add them to my "want list".
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Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: 29 Jul 2011 at 12:31pm
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^ Cool! It's an excellent album, go for it. Two or three more couples off it can be found on YouTube. BTW I was sure I'm going to be cruficied for this suggestion.  |
Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 30 Jul 2011 at 9:22pm
| set my IPOD to random and was reminded of a band to mention here, Agora, its like a Canterburry version of the BB feel. Well worth checking out |
Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 5:37pm
| Just got Miles' AGHARTA album, and it is also excellent, although not in the exacte vein of BB. Still gotta listen to Dark Magus and Pangaea |
Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2011 at 6:45pm
Based on what you said, you'll probably enjoy Dark Magus much more than Agharta or Pangaea. DM as more attitude. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm |
Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 10 Aug 2011 at 5:07pm
But get back to the original topic, neither album has that epic feel I find in Bitches Brew. I guess BB is a unique album and I'll always have to turn to that specific album to get my fix, like Ornette Coleman's OF HUMAN FEELINGS and Milton Babbitt\s ALL SET
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Posted By: MilesBeyond
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2011 at 10:55am
These are what I was going to suggest. I think the WR being "smooth" comment might come from the prominence of Shorter's soprano playing, which was significantly less essential on BB. Unfortunately, thanks to the damnable Kenny G, very few people in this day and age can hear the soprano sax without thinking cheesy smooth jazz. I remember that was even my first reaction (which I have since overcome, thankfully). |
Posted By: seb2112
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2011 at 10:21pm
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Posted By: Abraxas
Date Posted: 12 Aug 2011 at 2:05pm
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Posted By: MilesBeyond
Date Posted: 13 Aug 2011 at 7:10pm
Hmmm, what WR have you listened to? I had a similar impression of their Heavy Weather era stuff, but I Sing the Body Electric is a different league entirely. |
Posted By: zoviet
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2011 at 1:03pm
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Supersilent - 5 Isotope 217 - Utonian Automatic
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Posted By: wideopenears
Date Posted: 09 Dec 2011 at 2:40pm
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Maybe a bit late to the game, but Bitches Brew is a unique album, for sure. Keep in mind, it was a project of studio trickery (cut and paste) as much as of the musicians involved and the "compositions" played.
Having said that, if you're still searching, you should check out what's called "Kozmikgroov" -- jazz/rock music from the late 60's to about 1972-3 or so, and later stuff that's influenced by that stuff. People have mentioned some of this stuff already--Hancock's Mwandishi-to-Sextant period, before the funk hardened up a bit and the space abated, early Weather Report--first two or three albums, and the Live in Tokyo set, Donald Byrd's albums "Electric Byrd" and "Ethiopianm Knights," and all the Miles stuff you've been talking about.
Here are some other suggestions, though they're not going to be exactly like BB, you may find them worth checking out:
Roy Ayers-Ubiquity, Live at Montreaux
Eddie Henderson-Realization, Inside Out, Sunburst, Heritage
Joe Henderson-Black is the Color, Elements
Larry Young-Lawrence of Newark
Maybe some Les McCann--Invitation to Openness, or Layers.....maybe a bit too smooth, not "dark" enough for ya...
There are a bunch of other Kozmikgroov albums I can recommend, but they're more "jazz" instrumentation (Black Renaissance, Love Cry Want, Leroy Vinnegar, Bustar Williams, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah) or "funk based" (Lonnie Liston Smith, Michael Urbaniak, early george Duke)......
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Posted By: wideopenears
Date Posted: 09 Dec 2011 at 2:53pm
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..and for more recent stuff influenced by this vibe, in addition to that Rypdal album, which I love, there's a bunch of Bill Laswell projects, "Arcana," and some other stuff by artists like:
Phantom City
Jon Hassell
And also Waddada Leo Smith's "Yo Miles" albums are really cool....in fact, his last two releases, which aren't "Yo Miles!" projects, but are his own bands, are definitely worth checking out!
 and
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Posted By: zoviet
Date Posted: 11 Dec 2011 at 12:10pm
    oh my lord!!!! thank you so much for posting this!!!! this is the best damn thing that the Chicago scene has done in a long time, well at least since Tortoise's Beacons of Ancestorship album.......immediately ordered a copy and yes it really invokes the spirit of Bitches Brew and Big Fun! |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: 02 Apr 2012 at 4:13am
I finally got to hear these two, and indeed they're rather close to BB, probably due to Henderson's trumpet being the star...
Actually, I find them sonically closer to BB than to Mwandishi, despite the personnel being closer to Mwan
As for Sunburst's BB comparisons, it's a little more of a stretch, while Heritage is tagged as post bop
 (but I haven't heard it)I will explore Joe Henderson, but I saw that Black Is The Colour is not yet entered in our DB. ------------- my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones.... |
Posted By: Robmid
Date Posted: 31 Jul 2019 at 5:46pm
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This post is from many years ago, but I came across it when searching for other albums like Bitches Brew. And I can really relate as I've been looking for albums similar to Bitches Brew for 50 years! In fact this was the first jazz album I ever purchased. Have have collected close to 100 albums from that era that were influenced by Bitches Brew, and I like many of them, but no, nothing really comes close. My next favorite to Bitches Brew (also form 50 years ago) is Live at Fillmore (the original, not the reissue - edits and all). Still Kills me. And again, like all Miles, albums, nothing else quite like it. Ultimately it's like searching for the holy grail. And the search is futile. Instead, I broadened my scope and now my jazz collection is 5,000+ with some real masterpieces, but comparing them with Bitches Brew is futile. They are what they are. If you're always comparing, you'll never hear the brilliance of the other albums. That, being said, some of my other favorites of this era include: John McLaughlin - Devotion (another one from way back when which still does it for me) Donald Byrd - Electric Byrd and Kofi. Really wonderful spacey jams. John Surman - Way Back When (recorded in 1969 but lost and then finally issued in 2005. Frank Zappa Hot Rats. - Bitches Brew is jazz meets rock. Hot Rats is rock meets jazz. Love it. Nucleus - This English Band Headed by trumpeter Ian Carr (a biographer of Miles) recorded a number of fusion albums in the 70s. The live ones are best. Joe Farrell - Joe Farrell Quintet. - Features McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. Mellow but really nice. Joe Zawinul - Zawinul. Beautiful album released shortly after In a Silent Way, I believe. Soft Machine - Both Third and Fourth float my boat. Elton Dean (Soft Herd) - Rogue Element - Soft Machine-ish but really good. Just got this today! Miroslav Vitous - Infinite Search (by one of the founders of Weather Report) Randy Weston - Blue Moses (on CTI) Bobby Hutcherson - Cirrus. Contains one of my favorite songs ever, Zuri Dance. Jeff Beck - Blow by Blow. Jeff's fusion album. Elephant9 - These guys stir up some Bitches Brew flavor fusion on several of their albums. Heavy stuff that really grooves. Again, none of the these are really like Bitches Brew, but they are offspring, with their own charms. Cheers, Robert |
Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: 16 Aug 2020 at 7:06am
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A couple of albums that might be relevant that I haven't seen mentioned here would be: Julian Priester - Love, Love Dave Liebman - Lookout Farm------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm |
Posted By: js
Date Posted: 16 Aug 2020 at 10:44am
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^ Lookout Farm is Dave Liebman's tribute to Miles' electric fusion.
If no one else has already brought it up, the first Weather Report album is in the style of Bitches Brew.
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Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: 16 Aug 2020 at 2:39pm
I'm a big fan of the follow up "Drum Ode" as well. That first Weather Report album is sort of like Big Fun in a way. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm |
Posted By: khedger
Date Posted: 28 Dec 2020 at 3:03pm
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Here are a few things you MIGHT like: Big Fun - Miles Hallucination Engine - Material Seven Souls - Material "Weather Report" - Weather Report (there are two albums by this name, i'm recommending their first album which has Zawinul, Shorter, Vitous, Airto, and Alphonse Mouzon) keith
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Posted By: js
Date Posted: 28 Dec 2020 at 3:09pm
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Posted By: khedger
Date Posted: 28 Dec 2020 at 3:49pm
Mine too.....I actually like Big Fun a bit more than Bitches.....always have. keith
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Posted By: js
Date Posted: 28 Dec 2020 at 4:29pm
| ^ Of Miles' fusion albums I like Big Fun, Get Up With It, Agharta and Live at the Fillmore the best. |