Miles Davis - BIG FUN Poll

btw I realize the second half of "Great Expectations" is "Orange Lady" but I decided to stick with the OG tracklist.

Go Ahead John for me, but the whole thing is awesome.

whichever one i happen to be listening to at the time

GO AHEAD JOHN. Love listening to the various takes of this one on the JJ sessions box set.

Once someone on these hallowed pages said to me that this isn't a proper Miles studio album, just merely a collection of odds and ends!

it kind of is, right? (doesn't make it any less awesome)

I probably the took it the wrong way, but it still sounds ridic.

the

listening to go ahead john now, so great.

Recollections.

Honestly, I'd go with "Recollections" if it were on the original album. Maybe the most purely beautiful electric Miles track.

whichever one i happen to be listening to at the time

― the Zenga bus is coming (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, August 9, 2016 10:47 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^

yeah I was listening to this over the weekend and can't disagree

Love this record. LOVE IT. Weirdly the bummed that it has been usurped by reissues/box sets/bonus biz cuz it's pretty perfect-o.

when I first got it way back when it was like the ignored middle child between On the Corner and Get Up With It, I never saw anybody write/say anything about it (whereas there was plenty about the former two)

yea totally, i actually just bought it a few months ago since i never really heard much about it. i first heard "ife" on the OTC box set.

fwiw get up with it is also kind of a collection of odds and ends, not that it matters

I first tracked down "Ife" in college because it showed up as a sample on Digital Underground's "This is an EP Release" (I think New Kingdom sampled it too?) Samples are barely noticeable/recognizable of course.

Have always loved this collection. 'Lonely Fire' still remains my favorite.

First borrowed this from the library years back because I hadn't heard of it

Seems like Big Fun is viewed as more of an odds-and-ends package than Get Up With It because it's majority '69/70 material, whereas Get Up With It is mostly from 73/74 - more contemporaneous with its release. Obviously they both deserve the utmost respect.

Shakey otm, when I bought this I looked at the liner notes and was like "Why haven't I heard of this? Does it suck?". It didn't.

You can listen to Go Ahead John a million times and it's still a thrilling listen on headphones due to Teo's intense ping-pong stereo panning, I can't think of another Miles track like that. Sheer edge-of-your-seat tension on every listen, and that's just the production, not even the playing! Which is also awesome!

Gets my vote for sure.

dejohnette on that track is ridiculous. had anyone really played drums like that before? in 1970?

Has anyone really played drums like that since?

ha, good point

DeJohnette is still a shit-hot drummer, I love his recent In Movement album which ain't no Big Fun but has some wonderful motorik drumming in places.

yeah i gotta check that one out. he has a new one where he's playing piano right?

Yeah there is a solo piano one as well, not heard it tho.

wow this is great! so weird this is the only time i've ever seen anyone mention this album

surprised you haven't listened to it before tbh

yeah no kidding, I honestly did not know it existed until I saw this thread, it's like a whole classic era album that's new to me

this is kinda like when I found out via Spotify that Lou Reed had a solo album between Loaded and Transformer that I didn't know existed

think i heard most of Big Fun via the various box sets originally, but I think it holds up as its own thing

this is kinda like when I found out via Spotify that Lou Reed had a solo album between Loaded and Transformer that I didn't know existed

haha well um this is better than that album that's for sure!

tbh I kinda assume anyone that gets interested in Miles' electric period goes obsessively all-in cuz that just seems like a thing that happens. you get into it and then you have to have all of it.

DeJohnette is still a shit-hot drummer, I love his recent In Movement album which ain't no Big Fun but has some wonderful motorik drumming in places.

― calzino, Friday, August 12, 2016 10:33 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I saw DeJohnette last yr with his Chicago group (who's record is pretty good btw) and he was awesome, but for the encore they played a little improv jam and he laid into the hi-hat heavy groove he plays on a lot of these records and I nearly jumped out of my fucking seat. I wanted to be like "hey! it's him! it's that guy!"

xpost-

Yeah this was actually one of my very first electric Miles records just cuz I happened to stumble across it, but even early on people never really talked about, it always had to feel of being "leftovers" but I could never understand that take...

xp ha, that's great. it's funny because i'm sure that many of the musicians on these electric miles records don't think it's their best work by a long shot (i know jarrett and mclaughlin think this), but what's so killer about what miles was doing here is that he was making (forcing?) these insanely talented musicians do things they most likely never would've done on their own.

I only know these tracks from the boxes. Listening now, "Go Ahead John" is pretty goddamn amazing. It's a shame they didn't take the same approach with the other tracks. "Ife"'s great, but the others are relatively snoozeville -- tamboura Miles is my least favorite electric Miles (and probably my least favorite pre-'80s Miles).

Recollections is one of my favourite Miles things. Aside from that, probably Go Ahead John.

I don't understand the sequencing of the two-CD version ... why not put the original four tracks on one disk and the extras on the second, instead of scrambling them?

The original four tracks wouldn't all fit on one disc. Max CD capacity is 80 minutes.

Go Ahead John. It was surprising to hear what it sounded like without all the panning effects on the sessions version, but I prefer the bonkers effects version on Big Fun.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

It's a scientific fact that albums with Corky McCoy artwork are better.

I like most everything on this – it's a really underrated record, probably because unlike, say, Get Up With It, this one feels like the hodgepodge it is. "Great Expectations" goes on forever, but has great dynamics and forward motion deriving from an awesomely shuffling JDJ beat. "Orange Lady" is pretty stunning as a (the only?) Miles duet with himself and a great example of the super melodic solo voice Miles had developed around the time of the Fillmore records. "Ife" is the most monotonous thing in his catalogue and I love it for that – the In Concert rendition is absolutely skeletal by comparison. Everything that can be said about "Go Ahead John" has already been said – it's amazing. "Lonely Fire" is probably the only thing I don't out and out LOVE but I suspect there will come a time that I come around on it.

"Go Ahead John" it is.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

DAMN that was decisive. I ended up going with "Great Expectations," but I could have voted for any of the first three tracks.