MILES BLOWS AWAY ON HIS ACID JAZZ TRUMPET AS JOHN MCLAUGHLIN RUNS THE VOODOO DOWN

I got this one guy from Los Angeles who has sent me a few emails asking me to write something about MILES DAVIS, the legendary be-bop trumpeter and band leader who turned jazz on its head in the late 60`s by pioneering jazz-rock, rock-jazz, acid jazz, mushroom jazz (laugh), basically any jazz that sounded nothing like what he recorded during the 50`s, notably his masterpiece KIND OF BLUE. Miles has made it onto Lost Treasures twice before, once with KIND OF BLUE, the other time for the epic rock-jazz tour de force RIGHT NOW, one of only two tracks off the JACK JOHNSON soundtrack album released in 1971. BITCHES BREW is a bit too San Francisco wacky for me, despite the best efforts of legendary British jazz guitarist John McLaughlin to keep the melody tight within such an experimental recording setting, the unconventional and erratic chordal bursts of Davis and keyboardist HERBIE HANCOCK essentially create a conflicting and aggravating mood in place of the introspection that characterised Davis' more muted and defensive attempts at jazz rock fusion on albums before BITCHES BREW. To this day, some jazz lovers rever this 1970 experimental jazz fusion album as a watershed, revolutionary and the moment when jazz finally entered the pop culture and was liberated from minority aristocratic appeal. Before Davis recorded BITCHES BREW, his record company challenged him to record a hit album, an album that took jazz to the next level and to a new audience. By 1970, WOODSTOCK had been and gone and the whole popular music paradigm had been altered forever. BITCHES BREW is muddled to the max and lacks the sophistication of be-bop, but i guess in 1970 it would have sounded pretty bloody good if you were as high as a kite and were into the jazz fusion craze. MILES RUNS THE VOODOO DOWN is the most cohesive tune on BITCHES BREW, John McLauglin's guitar line gives this song some backbone and the closest thing to a melodic structure on the album.