for those about to rock

a desert island album

i don't think i'm up to compiling the desert island album list off the top of my head for the same reason i'm uncomfortable with lists in general -- with so many great choices to consider, at any given time one might slip through the cracks of the clamor of other contenders -- but, on occasion, i'll take a step back and look at my listening habits and identify a gem that i instinctively return to time and again. and so, in what might be the first entry of a periodic series on my blog, i'd like to praise bitches brew. i get something new out of it every time i listen to it. it's an incredibly visual album, filled with brilliant explorations of tension, mood and color. some naysayers argue that it's too 'free' in a jazz sense; i argue that this uninhibited spirit is what produces some of the album's finest moments. the solos take shape in a roiling chaos of menacing bass and deep-funk swing percussion; john mclaughlin's squirrelly guitars flare out and skitter along the surface, while davis's lines probe the landscape like a blind man's fingers before writhing into sinuous tendrils that continuously stretch out to the point that they would sound out of context if it weren't for how he links them at each progessive step. there's a breath-taking sense of creation and origin, of light yielding to shade and vice versa, of emptiness yielding to being and vice versa. bitches brew effortlessly connects on a primordial, subconcious level, and that's exactly where the album's mystery and power lies. it's a master work of the highest order.

posted by jomilkman @ 10:09 AM