In December of 2020, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Miles Davis’ classic album, Bitches Brew, twelve London-based artists recorded at The Church Studios to pay homage by recording new material inspired by the spirit of this album. The result is an album they are calling London Brew, which is now being released by Concord Jazz.

The twelve musicians who worked on this album are Benji B, Raven Bush, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Tom Herbert, Shabaka Hutchings, Nikolaj Torp Larsen, Dave Okumu, Nick Ramm, Dan See, Tom Skinner and Martin Terefe. Chances are you might not have heard of every one of these artists, but as you listen to this album, you’ll see that there are no weak links in this chain. Everyone involved is extremely talented, but even more than that, you can get a feel for what great ensemble players they all are. Jazz more than any other genre of music is all about living in the moment and feeding off of each other’s energy and communicating with your instruments, and when jazz musicians have been living in lockdown for a while, that energy and joy and passion just comes through tenfold when they got an opportunity to work on a project like this. The other part of the project that makes this work is that this is a tribute album in spirit only. Trying to recreate an album like Bitches Brew in any literal capacity is a fool’s errand, because everybody is only going to compare it to the original. This is why London Brew works – they take the spirit and the guiding principles of Bitches Brew, and then update and interpret what that means to them, a group of artists from different backgrounds all living in London in the 2020s. What this means in practice is that we get these brilliant avantgarde/fusion jazz compositions, which bring in elements of rock, hip hop, electronic music, funk, soul, and gospel, but folds it all into this style of jazz that is living on the edge. It’s definitely the type of album that you really need to sit with and let the music wash over you and absorb into your mind and body, but it’s also absolutely worth it. Everything about this album is connected, and everybody is pushing each other in the most interesting and exciting ways are they work their way through this collection of eight ambitious compositions.

London Brew is a great example of how to pay tribute to past greatness in jazz while making something new and relevant for today. These twelve musicians have clearly spent time with Miles Davis, but the spirit and the approach are much more important to honoring that legacy than just retreading what he did fifty years ago. They knew this, and they were able to make a brilliant new album that captures that spirit while looking forward and celebrating today as well.