Three 65, Day 45
Miles Davis, Bitches Brew

I wanted to write a lot about this album, but unfortunately don't have the time. Which is just as well, because I don't really have the vocabulary to describe it perfectly. I'm not one of those jazz-bo nerds who will tell you about "tonal modalities" and "arpeggiation." I just know what I like, and I love this album.

This is nearly the first in a long round of "jazz-rock fusion" albums that Davis and the jazz community produced in the 1970s (if not the actual first). The musicians sought to unleash the chaos of jazz over the chaos of rock and roll and perhaps merge the two. It works better than you might think. Although nothing here "rocks out," per se, all of it sounds a lot more energetic than regular jazz. And it sounds dark, too, in a way jazz never really sounded before, dark and haunting. Horns pierce the gloom of dark keyboard and percussion runs, sounding like whales dying in a sea of ink.

Davis would release other jazz-rock fusion albums, including the excellent In A Silent Way and The Complete Jack Johnson, but none of them hold a candle to this milestone. Not just another jazz album, Bitches Brew is an iconic display of talent from one of the greatest musicians of all time, and thus defies categorization as either jazz or rock.