Bitches Brew
"Holland's recollection: "it was totally cloaked in secrecy! Miles never let us hear anything, because he already knew that if a group of young musicians like us were to hear ourselves, we would cease to be in the moment and we would try and remember whatever we played and imitate ourselves. So he avoided that by never letting us hear anything. Young guys hear something and go 'yeah I like that-I'll play that on the next take.' But you never knew what the next take was going to be!"
Miles's path to authenticity in jazz recording sounds a lot like film shooting. He would bring some sketches of bass lines or chord progressions, and sometimes a melody related to them, but he used those fragments merely to give the musicians something to hold onto -guiding them toward improvisation. He recorded segments of around ten minutes each, which he later edited only minimally in post in case they were too long, cutting just enough to make the tracks fit within the 44-minute limit of a vinyl record.
It sounds like cinema, but with less intervention and more genius. Imagine going on set with nothing but a beat sheet for the midpoint, letting everyone improvise while you direct them through gestures and hidden face expressions, because you're also playing in the meantime and need to keep the take clean. One take per actor. And then you stitch it all together from the back of your mind, trusting it will work as a whole until you get to sit in the editing room a week later.
