Miles Davis, Bitches Brew

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 a film auteur. Macero also helped to create the space Miles craved, so that the jittery, multi-textured mix of electronic keyboards and sumptuous percussion doesn't intrude on the trumpeter's long, piercing solos — forged as if from a blast furnace, featuring some of the most passionate work of his legendary career.

Due to Macero's handiwork, and the quickening artistry of future stars such as Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Jack DeJohnette, among many others, the quality control is very high. I'm partial to Zawinul's majestic "Pharoah's Dance," the intensity of the title track and "Spanish Key," and the slow motion explosion of "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down." But because of its cultural moment and abiding impact on the course of jazz, it remains a document that is greater than the sum of its parts.