The Platinum Legacy of Bitches Brew

This photo was taken during a recent video interview I did with Lenny White (parts of which will be published here on this blog, later in an interview and article and in a documentary film-in-progress... and as soon as I can manage, a snippet on YouTube.) Between the two of us we are holding the platinum record awarded to Miles Davis on September 22, 2003 when his 1969 recording Bitches Brew was certified for sales of 1 million copies. (Thanks for the photo help to Aaron at Bluebird Imaging)

We were setting up lights and cameras in the living room of Vince Wilburn's house to do the taping while Lenny was in town to master his new CD, Anomaly (Abstract Logix) scheduled to be released in May. As my DP, Mike, and his assistant Nolan, raced around getting everything ready, Lenny and I got involved in a discussion of Bitches Brew. From up on the second floor of the house, Vince, who had overheard us, shouted down the stairwell asking if we'd like to see Miles' platinum record that he'd been awarded. The answer, of course, was hell yes...

Miles Davis' record sales were a big topic of conversation in Miles: the Autobiography for a number of reasons, all stemming from the fact that Bitches Brew had sold so many copies. After it was released in 1970 no one at Columbia, not even Clive Davis, had ever seen a jazz album sell so briskly.

Miles fueled the discussion of its commercial ascendancy for years with his claim that the revolutionary recording was the bestselling jazz album of all time. No question, the sales figures were staggering. But in truth, in 1986 -- many long years before his own platinum record was awarded -- the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) had certified Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters platinum. Miles' boast was probably true for a period of time, roughly from April 1970 through the end of 1973. But Herbie Hancock's album Head Hunters, issued in October of 1973, sold at such a rate that it was the first jazz recording ever certified gold by the RIAA -- a mere 6 months after it had been released -- thanks largely to the enormous influence of Bitches Brew on both the buying public and the people at Columbia, who, emboldened by Miles' success, were devoting large resources to marketing the new jazz/rock genre. It took another two years after Head Hunters went gold for Miles' own landmark recording to reach the required 500,000 sales plateau. But in fairness to Hancock's mentor, it would require a fair bit of diligent research to determine, one way or another, what the best-selling jazz album truly was as of 1989-1990 when Miles' autobiography was being written and published.

There wasn't always an RIAA, and even after their arrival as the industry arbiter in 1952, there have been frequent changes in the award criteria. Ten years before the RIAA even existed, Glenn Miller had received the very first gold record as a gift from RCA for having sold 1.2 million copies of his 78 rpm single "Chattanooga Choo Choo". Four years later, in 1958, when the RIAA boys started handing out their own gold records as sales awards, and began establishing standards for such matters, the criteria for a gold record was $1 million in sales. At 1941 prices, that's a lot of choo choos.
But the real problem in corroborating Miles' assertion is that the byzantine accounting methods, like many things about the record industry, have never been particularly transparent. The advent of easily downloaded digital musical files in the last 5 years or so may or may not have made the record-keeping less complex. Frederick Dannen's excellent book, Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business, might have us ascribe the industry's ills these day to its own nefarious business practices and avarice. Though that's a matter for discussion on a different day. As with prizefighting, another industry that places questionable characters in close proximity to large piles of cash, the devil is in the details.

But as is true of all life, including the worlds of music recording and prizefighting, the truth shall set you free. Informed of the most up-to-date, accurately calculated sales figures per the RIAA, Miles would be very pleased. On October 7, 2008, they certified that his own Kind of Blue had sold 4 million copies. And this was a year before that spectacular recording was reissued by Columbia/Legacy as part of the extended celebration of its much heralded 50th anniversary. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is unquestionably the best-selling jazz album of all time.

As for the most revolutionary jazz album of all time, there can be no doubt that Bitches Brew has had greater impact than any modern jazz ever recorded. Like it or not, it changed not only jazz but blues, and ultimately rock and roll. It changed what was recorded and how it was recorded. Lauded by many and excoriated by a few, it was the matrix for the personnel who went on to play in Tony Williams Lifetime, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Headhunters and Return To Forever.

Which brings me all the way back to Lenny White. Lenny has produced a most startling recording called Anomaly. Aptly titled. It's more than a breath of fresh air, it is a damned hurricane. We have heard a lot of good jazz/rock in the last 40 years. But while Return To Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra rocked it pretty hard, this new recording is the first jazz/ROCK I've ever heard.

Check back right here on jazzjazzersjazzing.blogspot.com next week for the whole inside scoop on Lenny White's CD, Anomaly. Like the title implies, Lenny figures this is nothing like what you'd expect from him. Take it from me, he's right. And if you'd like to hear rock and roll played by jazzers, you are going to dig it. A lot.

Stay tuned.