Review Summary: an improvised homage to Miles Davis? yeah that should be easy to pull off
If
Bitches Brew is a centerpiece of the 20th century because of its double label as
the jazz fusion incarnation and the best album that contains the word "bitches", then its 50th anniversary was the occasion to celebrate, right? Rejoice! Twelve London-based artists, collectively known as "London Brew", were grouped in early 2020 to give a series of concerts across Europe in honour of
Bitches Brew - said shows were canceled after The Major Thing That Ruined The Early 2020s. The collective then assembled for an improvised, three-day session in December 2020. A short word on the musicians: the lineup is basically a London jazz who's who (just add Joe Armon-Jones to make me salivate more).
Ok, introduction: done! So what's up with that record? First things first:
London Brew is neither a cover album nor a mere re-enactment of the OG Davis record - trying to re-do an improvised, groundbreaking work is the shortest way to an epic fail. It's an homage in spirit, not strictly musical, as all tracks are unified by an improvisatory fuel rather than a desire to recreate jazz fusion greatness. The opening piece represents that fire and the dual
Bitches Brew / modern London heritage: a lush rush of bleep bloops soon transforms into a rambling jam piece trading meditative moments for a burning crescendo calling for all twelve musicians' strengths. Tom Skinner and Dan See pound away like the drums insulted their mothers, Dave Okumu skronks like he's Lee Ranaldo, while the back-and-forth between Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings constitutes the central motif. At the same time, the whole lot is supported by a continuous layer of electronics. Phew, that's a lot, innit? That was like five minutes, man! But, as will prove a consistent feature, this first "song" decides to chill out a bit, only to rise with a powerful upswing that regretfully ends without any proper conclusion.
That first track alone contains everything that makes, and breaks,
London Brew. The musicianship is bonkers, the mixture of nods to jazz' past and inclinations towards electronic slabs is well-mixed and well-balanced, the group is tight, and the stretched-out improvisational pieces conjure as much jazz fusion as it does other genres. When the whole gang muscles their game up, like in those opener's dying minutes, it invokes a force that - almost!! - knows when to release the tension they've spent so long constructing. That "almost" is the
one big thing preventing the album from transcending from a great record to an essential one. All tracks fall into the same pitfall of proposing something powerful that never actually reaches the apex it hints at. In that sense, the project faithfully links the OG's cauldronesque vibe - always bubbling and boiling, constantly moving between chill contemplation and ferocious rockers. That's a nice way of saying that banging moments bang and that contemplative moments do not manage to leverage the soothing aspect they're aiming at. That's frustrating, even more so when it comes so close to actually delivering it.
Roughly the same can be said about the second part of the eponymous tune: the opening electronics wave escorted by slow sax riffs showcases that this is as much a Miles Davis yeehaw as it is a London woohoo. That becomes even more true when the dual breakbeats of Skinner and Dee come in - can't plead London without some UK garage bows. Mixed with typical jazz fusion guitar skronk, this first half constitutes one of the most powerful moments on the album; in moments like that,
London Brew is a crazy kaleidoscope that, not unlike the latest Ezra Collective record, makes it evident that this is
live music and that listening to it while sitting on one's ass is may not be the best way to ingest the tunes properly. Conversely, the second half sees dual saxophone litanies repeated while the rest of the band delivers what resembles the end of a crescendo. That's the second side of the
live music coin: you simply cannot hand out constant bangers like Jesus distributing bread. Some of these endless jams thus feel, at times, indeed a bit endless. To be fair, that's a problem the OG had, too: this is music building itself up only to watch itself fall apart, way too pretentious to let anyone else cause its downfall.
Fortunately, these moments of limbo don't happen often, and some tunes have designated MVPs: jazz-rocker "It's One of These" sees Tom Herbert's bass and Theon Cross' tuba trade punches to claim the rhythmic throne erected by the double drums, accompanied by plucked instruments. Likewise, Hutchings, the highest-profile figure in the gang, leads the most meditative tune, "Nu Sha Ni Sha Nu Oss Ra" with its serpentine rhythm once again accompanied by these plucked instruments working alongside a melodica. It's one of the few tunes that stays interesting during its entire runtime, but that mostly has to do with its already-calm vibe that doesn't break any mighty, ten-minute-in-the-building crescendo.
Another parallel between the two
Brews is the approach to sound collaging. Davis wanted to eliminate that "prearranged shit" and edited through lengthy jams with producer Teo Macero. Two pieces from different sessions could then unite into a gigantic piece that never seems to truly start or end. The same happened here: producer Martin Terefe, also on guitar and electronics duties (and producer of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours"), was left with more than twelve hours of material, which he mixed with "no editing at all, except deciding where to start and end a song". That transpires
a lot from the record: it feels like catching a track midway when it actually is just starting.
Forays into new gearing also happened during the recording process: meta-homage tune "Miles Chases New Voodoo in the Church" - an interpretation of Miles Davis' ode to Jimi Hendrix ("Miles Runs the Voodoo Down") - sees Garcia using pedals and effects with her tenor sax, which brings power and proves melodist dissonance can be accomplished with every instrument. Violin player Ravin Bush does the same on the closing track, "Raven Flies Low", where he puts his violin through effect pedals, channeling how Davis ran his trumpet through a tape delay in the OG. This central place taken by the violin makes the track the most playful with its surges of major chords. Then, again: the dying minutes of the tune, and the record, see the whole gang rise in a monster of a climax before awkwardly descending into calmer territories. "Raven Flies Low"
could have ended at the 10:30 mark, but the sound collage approach saddled it with unnecessary extension. You got my gripes by now, don't you?
The criticisms might seem constant, but they manifest the level of demand associated with any Davis-inspired work.
London Brew is great music, full of the soul and muscle necessary to develop potent tunes that allow for laid-back listening. It will likely not have the impact the OG had: by 1969, jazz was considered dead, and
Bitches Brew helped get boosted in the mainstream alongside the new craze for jazz-fusion and jazz-rock. However, it might reinforce London's already-established spot as the most significant modern jazz laboratory. If, in 1970, a fusion between jazz and rock felt inevitable, it's only natural jazz's fusion aspect gets refreshed with electronics. That, along with its determination to improvise shit and try to come up with new sounds, is how
London Brew successfully channels the legacy of its inspiration.
