Marilyn Mazur on Bitches Brew: “I listened to it in the darkness and somehow I fell into a kind of trance”

It’s hard to say just one [piece of music] of course! There were at least two serious candidates: the second one – which came first in my life – was when I was seven years old, listening to Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rites of Spring). I would dance along with it; and it was when I really got into music. But the one I’ve finally chosen is Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew – that was maybe the real turning point. Stravinsky, when I was seven, that was the opening into music; but Bitches Brew was when I was 14 – in the same year it came out, actually!

Of course, I had heard about Miles Davis. He had done lots of great music before then, but I hadn’t really checked it out. Then one day I was visiting a friend; and he put me in a room where he closed the curtains, and turned the light off and put headphones on me, and played Bitches Brew – the piece itself, which was one side of the double album. I listened to it in the darkness; and somehow I fell into a kind of trance, and had all these dreams. When I came out the room, he showed me the cover, and it was like I had seen the images that were painted on the cover without having known the music or seen the cover before. So for me that was like pure magic!

The funny thing is, I don’t ever listen to music with headphones, unless I’m in the studio or something – I like listening live in the room, wherever that is. But I think that [headphones] definitely made it an even stronger experience. So it might have been a good way at that time for me.

I heard it at around the time I was starting to go to the old Montmartre in Copenhagen and hearing jazz live. I was thrilled by that too, and together those things got me into jazz. I was playing classical piano at that point, and already into composing music on the piano (I was not playing percussion yet). But actually, it wasn’t really about jazz or not jazz – I was just really into music. But I definitely got interested in Miles; and in the period where everything was being fusioned and going semi-electronic.

I think what I was getting was very much the whole composition, not just Miles’ trumpet or something. It was the mystery of that music, it had all these layers - music that you get absorbed into, that you’re floating in. I like that more than just a tune that’s simple and then it’s over. It’s like a mystery that you can join into. Of course, the ostinato, and the bass clarinet making the answers to the ostinato, was a strong part of that music – I love music with ostinatos!

I feel in some ways that I never moved on from there [that record]. That’s the kind of music I like. Of course, I’ve evolved, and made a lot of my own music, which is very different; but for example when I joined Miles, I felt like I joined his band 10 years too late. He had moved on to playing more popular music, with simple tunes; and the mystery was somehow partly gone. Perhaps he asked me to join to get some of the mystery back, to get some colours in – I don’t know! But I think I’m still very influenced by Bitches Brew and Le Sacre. They have some relation those two pieces, if you ask me: they both have this magic and mystery quality – lots of layers and surprises. Those pieces are both very obvious in a lot of my music. For many musicians, the teenage years is when you really are strongly into music - you really react to it and it becomes a part of you. When you’re older, that’s still the music you listen to. It’s in you and you feel at home in it!

I feel there is a connection for me: when I listened to Bitches Brew, I had no idea how my life would end up, but somehow everything feels connected. When I played with Miles, we didn’t talk that much, we just played together. And there was somehow this telepathic connection which for me goes all the way back to when I was 14.