Bitches Brew

“Bitches Brew” always seemed to me like an un-reproducible masterpiece—the once in a lifetime result of capturing a bunch of really creative musicians in the studio. But just as Bang on a Can’s braintrust proved a few years back that Brian Eno’s previously unnotated studio-created Music for Airports could be transcribed and played back live by a group of musicians, the intrepid avant-rocker Henry Kaiser in an unlikely collaboration with free jazz guru Wadada Leo Smith has recreated Miles’s nearly half-hour of blessed-out funk. They show remarkable reverence and still find a few new things to say with it.

—FJO