Three days in August

Bitches Brew was recorded on 19, 20 and 21 August 1969, in New York, by a band of thirteen. The keyboards were electric pianos, played by Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and Larry Young; Bennie Maupin played bass clarinet, and John McLaughlin guitar.

What the players were given

Very little. Miles handed out short sketches and directions, and then let the tape run. The drummer Lenny White remembered it years later:

It was like an orchestra, and Miles was our conductor. We wore headphones. We had to be able to hear each other. All live recording, no overdubs.

The editing room

The record was finished afterwards by the producer Teo Macero, who cut and spliced the long takes, repeated passages and added echo, so that the record is partly made of the room and partly of the tape.

The keyboard above is a Fender Rhodes Mark I Suitcase, a 1977 instrument photographed by Daniel Spils (CC BY 2.0), an electric piano of the kind the band used, though not from that year.