Video: Bitches Brew Revisited at Celebrate Brooklyn

Though the solstice isn't until tomorrow, let's just bend the rules a little and agree that one of the best concerts of the summer has already taken place, last night under the stars at the Prospect Park bandshell. On a perfectly sublime June night, eight eminently talented musicians gathered to pay homage to Miles Davis's groundbreaking jazz fusion double LP Bitches Brew, which debuted some four decades ago. Last night's brewmasters were led by composer and cornetist Graham Haynes, who was joined by Marco Benevento on keyboards, James Blood Ulmer on hollow body electric guitar, Adam Rudolph on percussion, the amazing Melvin Gibbs on bass, An­toine Roney on clarinet, the explosive Cindy Blackman on drums, and DJ Logic on turntables.

The impeccable sound mix enhanced the work of an octet coiled tightly together into the wicked, mesmerizing grooves of the album, which was recorded over three days in August 1969 and featured such jazz luminaries as Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, and John McLaughlin. Many of the pieces on the album were recorded without rehearsal, and last night's "revisitation" successfully captured the visceral, unpredictable vitality of Bitches Brew, Davis's first gold record. And the concert was certainly a high water mark for the Celebrate Brooklyn series, one of those stellar nights that remind you why it's worth sticking around NYC during the summer. As the group churned through Davis's incantatory album under giant video projections of Mati Klarwein's original album art, the spellbound audience seemed collectively transported into what the Times once described as Bitches Brew's "spacious, black-magic stealth funk.” Just WOW. And FREE, too!