This week’s Cosmic Jazz takes a final look at Bitches Brew as we play the influential title track of this 40 year old masterpiece.  Bitches Brew pioneered the concept of the studio as a musical instrument, with the use of effects and – particularly – close editing of the recordings.  We hear this especially on the title track and Pharaoh’s Dance (played two weeks ago on Cosmic Jazz).

Miles Davis and his longtime producer Teo Macero were responsible for this.  The changes were so dramatic that musicians present at the recordings didn’t recognise the music when it was released.  Bitches Brew contains 15 edits, with several short tape loops of just five seconds (at 3:01, 3:07 and 3:12) and so this revolutionary work was not only a controversial classic of musical innovation, it also became renowned for its pioneering use of the studio as an instrument in its own right.

We’ll also play new music from Mercury Prize nominee Kit Downes, remember the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with a track from Terence Blanchard’s A Tale of God’s Will project and pay a final tribute to trumpeter Harry Beckett with a piece from Mike Westbrook’s atmospheric Metropolis suite.

1. Kairos 4tet – Hymn to Her
2. Lonnie Liston Smith – Astral Travelling
3. Kit Downes Trio – Golden
4. Roy Ayers – Daddy Bug
5. Herbie Hancock – The Song Goes On/Ostinato (Suite for Angela)
6. Mike Westbrook – Metropolis IX
7. Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
8. Sleep Walker – Into the Sun (feat. Bembe Segue)
9. Terence Blanchard – Levees

Video this week is an interview with Kit Downes in which he talks about his first jazz record, Oscar Peterson’s Night Train.  We’ve followed this with the classic Peterson Trio playing You Look Good To Me.  Enjoy!

Time to spend longer with the new release from Phronesis, another dip into the Bitches Brew and more tracks which look forward to the upcoming London Jazz Festival in November. It’s all here on this week’s Cosmic Jazz.

1. Marc Cary Trio – Bismillah Khan
2. The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project – Free Hands
3. Terry Callier – Keep Your Heart Right
4. Max Roach – Triptych:Prayer/Protest/Peace (feat. Abbey Lincoln)
5. Booker Little – Bee Tee’s Minor Plea
6. Gerardo Frisina – Waltz for Emily
7. Phronesis – Eight Hours
8. Sound Advice – La Giostra (the Roundabout)
9. Miles Davis – Sanctuary
10. Steve Dyer – Qinisa Indlu
11. Stan Getz and Kenny Barron – I Remember Clifford
12. Gary Bartz Ntu Troop – Sifa Zote
13. Charles Lloyd – Booker’s Garden

The usual eclectic choice of music this week – including a tribute to Harry Beckett who died last month and singer Abbey Lincoln who died on 14 September.  We also played more from that great new album by Phronesis and looked forward to some of the artists playing at the London Jazz Festival in November.

There was also Pharaoh’s Dance, another long track from the seminal Bitches Brew, recorded 40 years ago this month.  In the liner notes to the album critic Ralph J Gleason wrote that “right now it the on the edge of newness and has that snapping fire you sense when you go out there from the spaceship where nobody has ever gone before.”

Sounds rather like Cosmic Jazz to me…

1. Joshua Redman – I’m an Old Cowhand
2. Sound Advice – Jungle Juice
3. Harry Beckett – Tender is the Sky
4. Michael Garrick – Fellow Feeling
5. Terence Blanchard – Harvesting Dance
6. Erik Truffaz and Murcof – Al Mediodia
7. Miles Davis – Pharaoh’s Dance
8. Colin Steele – Lament for Miles
9. Harry Beckett – Something Special
10. Abbey Lincoln – The Music is the Magic
11. The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project – Free Hands
12. Phronesis – Eight Hours

Videclips this week just had to be from both Abbey Lincoln and Harry Beckett.  The music speaks for itself:

This week’s Cosmic Jazz focused on the piano trio – perhaps the essence of jazz variation. Just three instruments – piano, bass and drums – but an infinite range of possibilities. The history of the piano trio is one of a shifting change in relationship between the components: once it was the piano only that swung out the improvisation with the bass and drums just timekeepers, but now there’s usually a more balanced interaction between the three.

We played music from some of the key piano trios of the last 30 years – from the influential Chick Corea’s Blue Note masterpiece of 1968 (Now He Sings, Now He Sobs) to last month’s release from bassist Jasper Hoiby. In between we featured Bill Evans, EST, Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau and more.

1. Chick Corea – Windows
2. Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus and Max Roach – Fleurette Africaine
3. Oscar Peterson Trio – Corcovado (Quiet Night of Quiet Stars)
4. Bill Evans Trio – Milestones (live)
5. Bill Evans Trio – Introduction/One for Helen (live)
6. Michel Camilo Trio – Nardis
7. Michel Petrucciani Trio – Here’s That Rainy Day
8. The Bad Plus – Smells Like Teen Spirit
9. Brad Mehldau – River Man
10. Keith Jarrett Trio – Autumn Leaves/Up For It (live)
11. EST – Tuesday Wonderland (live)
12. Robert Glasper Trio – No Worries
13. Robert Mitchell Trio – Teardrop
14. Phronesis – Blue Inspiration

Welcome to Cosmic Jazz – going out live!  Tonight was a mix of the rare, way out and truly cosmic – more music from around the globe that was chosen to thrill and chill you in equal measure.  There were tracks from the outer edges of the jazz world, but we continued our playing of the Miles Davis classic album Bitches Brew with an outtake that didn’t make it onto the original release.

We mixed tracks and played some edited versions to cram in as much great music as we could.  Technical gremins tonight very briefly silenced the music – but treat those brief silences as extracts from John Cage’s seminal 4.33 and you’ll be fine…  Enjoy!

1. DJ Shadow – Best Foot Forward/Building Steam with a Grain of Salt (alternative versions)
2. Terri Lynne Carrington – Jazz Is
3. Santana – Every Step of the Way
4. Bahia Black – Follow Me
5. Fela Ransome Kuti and Africa 70 – Ginger Baker and Tony Allen Drum Solo
6. Christian Prommer’s Drumlesson – Can You Feel It
7. Albert Ayler – In Heart Only (live)
8. Lew Tabackin Trio – The Best Thing for You
9. Charlie Parker – Bongo Bop
10. Sun Ra – Disco 3000
11. John Zorn – Giu la Testa! (Duck, You Sucker!)
12. The Cinematic Orchestra – All That You Give
13. Miles Davis – Feio
14. Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra – Entrances/Two
15. Duke Ellington – Sunset and the Mockingbird
16. Piero Umilliani – Caravan
17. Ken Nordine – Blue
18. Winston Mankunku Ngozi – Yakhal’ Inkomo
19. Vassilis Tsabroupoulos – Mystic
20. Don Byron – Belmondo’s Lip (DJ Spooky remix)

Tonight’s videoclips (yes, two!) are also suitably leftfield.  The first is from jazzpoet and voiceover supremo Ken Nordine while the second is Sun Ra’s version of Pink Elephants on Parade, synched to original footage from the Dumbo soundtrack.

Well – you were warned!

Normal service resumes next week as we feature a look at great contemporary jazz piano trios including Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau.  We’ll also bring the art of the piano trio right up to date with some of our feted new artists – Kit Downes, Jasper Hoiby and others.

Cosmic Jazz tonight started off with three great British jazz artists before going a little leftfield with some Brazilian magic, Detroit funk and Cuban mixology.  Then back to jazz with Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald before more of our usual eclectic jazz.

As always, let us know what you think via the Comments section of the site.  For more information about Lester Bowie’s Rios Negros, go to the Features section of the site and scroll down.

1. Geoff Eales Trio – Magister Ludi
2. Kairos 4tet – VC
3. Matthew Halsall – On the Other Side of the World
4. Mauricio Maestro (feat. Nana Vasconcelos) – Verdade Anterior
5. Azymuth – Caca a Raposa
6. The Detroit Experiment – Think Twice
7. Edgaro el Productor en Jefe – Mami (Tropicalia remix)
8. Miles Davis – John McLaughlin
9. Ella Fitzgerald – With a Song in My Heart
10. Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela – The Whirling Dervish
11. Willis Jackson – Nuther’n like Thuther’n/Jimmy Smith – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (pt. 2)
12. Lester Bowie – Rios Negros
13. Aaron Parks – Nemesis
14. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Jupiter
15. Herbie Hancock – Wiggle Waggle

This week’s videoclip comes from Ella Fitzgerald – it’s her swinging version of Jobim’s Desafinado.

Every week at 9:30 pm on Cosmic Jazz we let you know about music you can hear locally.  We have less time on the show now and so we’ll just announce the venue and the artist.  Remember – check the website for each venue to find out more.  We’ll show the first upcoming show at each venue.

If you’ve been to see jazz locally, write and tell us about it via the Comment facility below this list of venues and events.

Fleece Jazz at Stoke by Nayland Club
23 July – Esther Miller
Website: http://www.fleecejazz.co.uk
Phone: 01787 211865

Ipswich Jazz Club
01 August – Alan Crumpton Memorial Night
Website: http://www.ipswichjazzclub.co.uk
Phone: 01473 231552

Jazz Nights at the Bell
01 August – Alan Crumpton Memorial Night (at Ipswich Jazz Club)
Website: http://www.jazz-nights.com
Phone: 01223 362550

Milestones Jazz Club, Lowestoft
01 August – Phil Brooke Quartet
Website: http://www.milestonesjazzclub.co.uk/
Phone: 01502 568684

The Devil’s Kitchen Collective, Bury St Edmunds
07 August – Ronnie Scott Legacy Quartet
Website: not yet available
Phone: 07917 860384

Segue Productions @ Lakeside Theatre, Colchester
no jazz events currently programmed
Website: http://www.segue.org.uk/
Phone: 01206 825600

Colchester Arts Centre
no jazz events currently programmed
Website: http://www.colchesterartscentre.com
Phone: 01206 500900

Cambridge Modern Jazz Club
new autumn programme available soon
Website: http://www.cambridgejazz.org
Phone: 01223 362550