My review of Miles Davis' Miles At The Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3, today at All About Jazz.
By the time Bitches Brew (Columbia) was released in April, 1970—and despite receiving a 5-star review in Downbeat Magazine—trumpeter Miles Davis was already under fire from mainstream jazz critics as having "sold out," despite the densely constructed, improvisationally unfettered music being as unapproachable to an audience looking for accessible music as anything he'd done with his increasingly liberated second great quintet of the 1960s. Sure, there were rock rhythms and, perhaps more disturbingly to the delicate ears of its detractors, rock energy and volume, but if anyone was thinking "sellout," it certainly wasn't Columbia Records, who had no idea what to do with side-long improvisational excursions, pasted together in collage-like fashion by Davis' longtime producer, Teo Macero.
But thankfully, the late '60s and early -to-mid-'70s was a time when the emergence of FM radio stations and open-minded music fans made the kind of music Davis and others in his circle made not just accepted, but massively successful. It's no hyperbole to suggest that, were recordings like [i[Bitches Brew[/i], Weather Report's self-titled 1971 debut and Mahavishnu Orchestra's equally groundbreaking first album, 1971's The Inner Mounting Flame, released today—and that's assuming major labels would even touch this music—they would never come within an ass' roar of the success they achieved back in the day. Looking back, accusations of selling out were already completely off-base, based on the archival find Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (Legacy, 2013), which shone a spotlight in the trumpeter's "lost quintet" featuring, along with Davis, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, (largely) electric pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette. It may have been loud and hard-edged, but it may well have represented the freest music of Davis' career to date.
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