San Francisco 1970

San Francisco 1970

As the 1960s wound to a close, Miles Davis was fearlessly forging ahead into new musical directions. Following the transitional In a Silent Way, the groundbreaking double album, Bitches Brew would signal an entirely new musical form that found Davis embracing electronic instrumentation and amplification. By 1970, Davis was performing before the largest audiences of his career, often opening for popular rock bands of the era. He had opened for The Band at the Hollywood Bowl, and on Fillmore East bills for headliners Laura Nyro and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. He also played a multi-night run in April '70 opening for the Grateful Dead at Fillmore West. These performances brought Davis a new younger audience that might not have understood the genesis of his music, but dug it just the same. It's a telling comment on Miles' relentlessly forward-looking vision that a mere sixteen months after recording Bitches Brew, and barely eight months after releasing it to unprecedented commercial success, he had effectively dropped most of its material from his live repertoire. On this performance, Davis focuses primarily on new compositions (What I Say, Honky Tonk, Funky Tonk, and Yesternow), with only eleven minutes of the hour-plus performance exploring established cuts Bitches Brew and Sanctuary. Yesternow, a ferocious track Davis had recorded the previous April for the Tribute to Jack Johnson film, is followed by the title track from Bitches Brew, concluding with another new composition, Funky Tonk. During the nearly 35 minutes of music contained in these last three pieces, the group's power and precision is nothing short of astounding. Apart from the set-closing cue of The Theme, little of this music derives from Miles' jazz period, nor does it fall into the free jazz category that it is so often mistakenly associated with. This music is much funkier, often comprised of deep, one chord, cyclical grooves that have little in common with jazz.