John McLaughlin

In John McLaughlin, the British guitarist lends his name to a session that marked a radical turn in jazz. Recorded in August 1969 at Columbia's Studio B, in New York City, this 4:26-minute track is pure raw electricity: the distorted bass, the drums with a groove that spills over, and that John McLaughlin guitar slicing through the air like a knife. There is no rigid structure or predefined themes; the piece emerges from collective improvisation, with Miles Davis at the helm guiding the chaos toward something that still sounds futuristic today. Producer Teo Macero would later edit the takes in the studio, but what you hear is the energy of three days where jazz met rock without filters.

The album, Bitches Brew, was released in March 1970 and was not an immediate success, but over time it became the starting point of jazz-rock fusion. Miles Davis had been exploring electric sound in In a Silent Way, but here he took a step further: amplified instruments, rhythms that stretch like gum, and solos that seem to emerge from nowhere. John McLaughlin, with his dizzying technique, was key to that leap. The song bears his name, but in reality it is a portrait of the moment when jazz stopped being solely acoustic to embrace distortion and boundless freedom.