Bitches Brew is timeless, groundbreaking music that is nevertheless best understood in its chronological context. By August of 1969, jazz was still roiling from the early death of Miles's former cohort John Coltrane, who'd turned sheets of blistering sax into a tireless spiritual quest that resulted in 19 recordings in the final three years of his life. Meanwhile, the rock counterculture was commercially and creatively ascendant, led by the acid rock bands on the west coast and Jimi Hendrix in full flower.

Bitches Brew was Miles's brilliant response. The definitive jazz-rock fusion record, it bristles, burbles and seethes with the turbulent energy of the times, yet somehow retains the signature remove and resolve that Miles, the lonely rebel, had patented on his previous landmark discs, Birth of the Cool and Kind of Blue. Studded with luminaries and highly influential — almost every fusion record of significance recorded during the ensuing decade was fashioned with Bitches Brew alumni — it would have been a completely different sound without Miles at the hub of the wheel.

Yet nearly as much credit must go to producer Teo Macero who, with rudimentary '60s technology, cut and pasted disparate snippets into a compelling whole, like… read more »