“We played for three days straight with no notes on the page and no repeats. There were 12 musicians in the room, just listening and responding. It was intense.” In December 2020, the jazz saxophonist Nubya Garcia took part in a marathon London-based recording session to mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Miles Davis’s album Bitches Brew. Also recorded over three days, in New York in 1969 with a group of 13 musicians, Bitches Brew is a sprawling work of jazz, funk and psychedelic rock. Squealing horns battle with a thunderous, swinging rhythm section of double drummers, while electronic keyboard and guitars shred through melody with a piercing clarity.
Read the feature in the Observer.
[This piece was published on 25/03/23]