Miles Davis B!tches Brew QUAD SACD

[PowellPressburger]

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Miles Davis

B!tches Brew

2018 SACD from Japan with Quadrophonic audio

I imported from Amazon Japan

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Roughly $60.00 to US

[bigshot]

Well. even at that price it's a no brainer. Ordered!

[Dubstar]

got my order with CDJapan - can't wait!

[Pondosinatra]

How does it compare to Kind of Blue???

I like more mellow soft jazz.....can't stand what I call 'spazz jazz' where it's just all over the place.

[PowellPressburger]

If you prefer KIND OF BLUE, B!tches Brew is not for you.

He broke musical structure and melody with this album. It is considered groundbreaking, yet I think was controversial at the time of its release.

I like the album a lot... but I have to be in the right mood for it.

Can't wait to hear the multi-channel Quad version.

Mine should deliver tomorrow from Amazon Japan

[kansashoops]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

How does it compare to Kind of Blue???

I like more mellow soft jazz.....can't stand what I call 'spazz jazz' where it's just all over the place.

It's been a while since I listened to any of it, but my recollection is that it sounds more like a Herbie Hancock album than Kind of Blue.

[PowellPressburger]

Got mine delivered to work today from Amazon Japan

Will Open it at home this evening

The metallic packaging is really nice.

It shipped in a nice bigger box. the SACD package was plastic wrapped to cardboard and arrived mint.

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[bluenote23]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

How does it compare to Kind of Blue???

I like more mellow soft jazz.....can't stand what I call 'spazz jazz' where it's just all over the place.

Like PowellPressburger said, if you like 'soft jazz' then this will not be what you expect at all.

I think that all the late Miles is fantastic. But if you're looking for 'jazz' as a sort of sonic backdrop, forget about this.

I remember when I first heard this (when I was 15 or 16) my friend's older brother said to us 'You just listen to this because you're kids and you think it's cool but it's just noise!'

I was listening to this last night (not this super SACD recording) and it struck me how 'modern funky' it was.

There is no sweet and melodic Miles on this. He's blowing hard almost all the time, cutting through a rhythmic bed that's almost cacophony or maybe more deliberated frenzy.

My knowledge is limited but I find that this, Jack Johnson and On The Corner are pretty special works taking Miles out of the realm of 'jazz' into a singular musical vision.

So, if you want a shock, check it out. If you want to slip more gradually into it, then listen to Filles de Kilimanjaro and In A Silent Way first. MIles is still sweet and singy on these but the music is heading somewhere else. If you find that direction interesting, then take a leap.


As a rambling aside, my friend's brother turned out to be quite correct and I didn't get it as a teenager. It wasn't long before I went back to listening to Cream and Johnny Winter and Miles collected dust.

I didn't buy Jack Johnson and a few years later I was struggling to keep up in a show band and my slightly older band mates were raving about On The Corner. But I still didn't get it then and would rather be listening to Yes.

A few years later, another band member tried to turn me on to Live-Evil. I can still remember him cocking his head as he said, "there, you hear it? You hear it?' I didn't really.

So 50 years later, I get it!!

[PowellPressburger]

The Quad Multi Channel audio IMO is an experience

It comes across as DSD on my OPPO ans Denon AVR

[bigshot]

I listened to this last night and I'm pretty happy with it. It definitely is an improvement over the 2 channel mix. Parts of this album have always sounded muddled to me. There's certainly a lot going on. Having it broken up into four channels does a lot to sort out the confusion in those sections. The balances help with that a lot too. They are absolutely perfect throughout the entire album. It's rare I hear a mix this complex and don't hear things I would have handled differently. But this one is perfect.

This album pioneered the use of multi-tracking studio techniques as a compositional tool and was ground zero for jazz/rock fusion, so it makes sense for there to be a multichannel mix. This mix was clearly not an afterthought or toss off though. It's just as complex and worked out as the stereo mix. It's primarily a "four corners" quad mix. Individual instruments are assigned to individual channels. The drums are generally split between LR and RF. RR is guitar and LF is keyboards. Davis's horn is spread across the front. However, there are times where the instruments move around... for instance in one section the drums are playing a 4/4 beat and they move to a different channel for each bar. Davis's horn has two slapbacks and they are assigned to the two rear channels. So when he plays, the delay comes in on one rear channel and then the next. It's a very nice effect and it clears out his solos much better than the stereo version did. In some parts, the instruments and counter rhythms get pulled apart... for instance Davis's trumpet might have an element of aspiration that is reflected in one channel, but is EQed softer in another... one set of drums will be in the rear and the other set in the front. On any other album that would be distracting, but this record was made to be cut up and put back together like that.

The sub bass on this is pretty recessed. That may have been deliberate to facilitate the requirements of matrixed LP cutting. At the beginning of the first side, someone bumps a mike and there is a low frequency bump, but other than that, it sits comfortably above 80Hz. But there is one song on disc 2 that has some heavy lower bass. There might be some super audible noise on this SACD. When I put the album on, my dog left up spun around several times and ran out of the room. (She may just not like fusion...) There's audible tape hiss in one section and even a tiny bit of print though on the last track. They must not have stored this master tails out. But the noise is only in short sections and doesn't intrude. If you're a fan of the sound of tube amps, there's a lot of euphonic distortion on display here. They appear to be experimenting with running all kinds of instruments through guitar amps to create interesting effects. None of the instruments here sound real or are presented in a natural acoustic. It isn't that kind of album. So it isn't something you would consider "audiophile". But it more than makes up for that with the imaginative processing of the sound and the inspired post production for the multichannel mix.

Overall, it's a revelation to hear an iconic album like this presented in such a different way than I'm used to. The four corners and ping pong aren't approaches I normally prefer, but on this album, they suit the style. Musically, I was impressed by the ragged energy of Davis and McLaughlin, but the musician who really stood out was Zawinul. He had a way of fitting in around just about any kind of sound Davis can produce and set it off perfectly. A lot of times, music like this can sound like a tug of war, but there's a spirit of cooperation here that carries it through without having to musically resolve itself. It's raw and unfinished feeling, but it's alive and carefully conceived at the same time. Quite a trick.

The price on this from Amazon.jp is quite high, but the packaging is very nice with a beautifully printed oversized gatefold sleeve and booklet in English and Japanese. The double album comes on two SACDs with the quad mix and a hybrid 2 channel layer. Worth getting.

[Dubstar]

for some reason my OPPO via my Yamaha receiver is decoding this as 5.0 is there a way to disable it so it's not coming out of the front center speaker and repurpose to it's four 'corner' channel sound mix.

[bigshot]

Try setting the output of the AVR to Direct. You might have a stereo to multichannel DSP turned on.

[fdm]

Finally after what seems like forever my copy of this arrived yesterday. Nobody mentioned (did they?) that this package is the size of a 7" single. Is this the case with others from Japan? First I've ever run into.

Hope to dig into it this week. Pricey, but I don't mind every once in a while for a classic like this.

[bigshot]

I asked about the weird format too. Apparently there are a few releases in this size. The people I spoke to that had them said they just put the disc in a regular CD case and put the package in the closet. I might do that too. Getting tired of this weird sized thing with no place to put it.

[Gremal]

First of all, this is not "late Miles." It is early in his fusion period. Also, "it sounds more like a Herbie Hancock album than Kind of Blue"...no. Herbie started out recording Blue Note sessions that were more straight ahead than Kind of Blue. Miles recuited him into his second quintet that was the precursor to *****es Brew, and set the stage for much of the jazz fusion that followed, including that by Herbie.

I was very impressed with the multichannel sound. It's not going to win any awards for sound quality, but it is much better than any previous digital version of the album. For those not familiar, I recommend you stay away until you develop an appreciation for what Miles was doing around this time. It is not easy to understand how Miles got here from Kind of Blue. Actually, if it wasn't for the involvement of saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter, I would not care for *****es Brew much.

As for the packaging, it is not uncommon for the Japanese to do these miniature overtures to LPs that celebrate the original releases, including gatefold design. I also got the Jeff Beck - Rough & Ready in this series and I appreciate the Japanese reverence for original album artwork and promo materials. Frankly I wish there was more of a market for it here in the US.

[bigshot]

Personally, I prefer "early Miles" to this "not late Miles", but the quad mix gives me a better appreciation of this album.