| Big Fun is a double album past times American jazz recording artist Miles Davis, released Apr 19, 1974, on Columbia Records. It contains tracks recorded betwixt 1969 too 1972 past times Davis. Largely ignored on its master copy release, it was reissued on August 1, 2000 past times Columbia too Legacy Records amongst additional material, which led to a belated critical reevaluation. Big Fun presents music from 3 dissimilar phases of Miles Davis's early-seventies "electric" period. Sides i too iv ("Great Expectations/Orange Lady" too "Lonely Fire") were recorded 3 months after the Bitches Brew sessions too contain sitar, tambura, tabla, too other Indian instruments. They too score the initiatory of all fourth dimension since the initiatory of all of Miles Davis's electrical stream that he played his trumpet amongst the Harmon mute which had been i of his hallmarks, making it audio much similar the sitar. This contributed to creating a real clear too lean sound, highlighting both the high too depression registers, every bit opposed to the busier audio of Bitches Brew which placed to a greater extent than emphasis on the middle too depression registers. "Ife" was recorded after the 1972 On the Corner sessions, too the framework is similar to tracks from that record. It has a drum too electrical bass groove (which inward fact at i betoken breaks downwards due to mistiming) too a plethora of musicians improvising individually too inward combinations over variations on the hypnotic bassline. "Go Ahead John" Recorded on March 7, 1970, "Go Ahead John" is an outtake from Davis's Jack Johnson sessions. The recording is a riff too groove-based, amongst a relatively sparser line-up of Steve Grossman on soprano saxophone, Dave Kingdom of the Netherlands on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, too John McLaughlin on guitar amongst wah-wah pedal. It was i of the rare occasions inward which Davis recorded without a musical keyboard. It was recorded inward 5 sections, ranging from 3 to thirteen minutes, which producer Teo Macero afterward assembled inward post-production iv years later for Big Fun. DeJohnette provides a funky, complex groove, Kingdom of the Netherlands plays bass amongst i constant banker's complaint repeated, too McLaughlin plays inward a staccato agency amongst blues too funk elements. According to i music writer, the track's bass parts has "a trancelike drone that maintains" the predominantly Eastern vibe of the album. Davis's trumpet too McLaughlin's guitar parts were heavily overdubbed for the recording. The overdubbing final result was created past times superimposing part of Davis's trumpet solo onto other parts of it, through something Teo Macero calls a "recording loop". Macero later said of this production technique, "You hear the ii parts too it's exclusively ii parts, but the ii parts decease iv too they decease 8 parts. This was done over inward the editing room too it only adds something to the music [...] I called [Davis] inward too I said, 'Come in, I intend we've got something you'll like. We'll campaign it on too if you lot similar it you've got it.' He came inward too flipped out. He said it was i of the greatest things he always heard". DeJohnette's drums were too manipulated past times Macero, who used an automatic switcher to cause got them rattle dorsum too forth betwixt the left too correct speakers on the recording. In his mass Running the Voodoo Down: The Electric Music of Miles Davis, Davis-biographer Phil Freeman describes this technique every bit "100 pct Macero" too writes of its significance to the rail every bit a whole, stating: This doesn't create the final result of ii drummers. It's only disorienting, throwing the ear off remainder inward a agency that forces the listener to pay unopen attention. The drums cease to perform their traditional function. Jack DeJohnette's beats, funky too propulsive on the session tapes, are too hence chopped upwards that their timekeeping utility is close nil. Macero has diced the beat too hence adroitly that nosotros are non fifty-fifty permitted to hear an entire drum hitting or hi-hat crash. All that remains are clicks too whooshes, barely identifiable every bit drums and, again, practically useless every bit rhythmic indicators. Thus, the footstep is maintained past times Dave Holland's one-note throb too the occasional descending blues progression he plays. The feeling i gets from "Go Ahead John" becomes i of floating inward space. Track listing: 1. Great Expectations 27:34 2. Ife 21:33 3. Go Ahead John 28:26 4. Lonely Fire 21:21 Line-up / Musicians - Miles Davis / trumpet (1,3-8), electrical trumpet amongst wah wah (2) - Steve Grossman / soprano saxophone (1,4,5,7,8) - Sonny Fortune / soprano saxophone & flute (2) - Carlos Garnett / soprano saxophone (2) - Wayne Shorter / tenor saxophone (3,6) - Bennie Maupin / bass clarinet (1,3,4,6-8), clarinet & flute (2) - John McLaughlin / electrical guitar (1,3,5,7,8) - Khalil Balakrishna / electrical sitar (1,4,6-8), Indian instruments (6) - Herbie Hancock / electrical pianoforte (1,8) - Chick Corea / electrical pianoforte (1,3,4,6-8) - Lonnie Liston Smith / electrical pianoforte (2) - Harold I. Williams, Jr. / electrical pianoforte (2) - Joe Zawinul / electrical pianoforte (3,6), Farfisa organ (6) - Larry Young / organ & celeste (4,7) - Ron Carter / double bass (1,8) - Harvey Brooks / Fender bass guitar (1,4,6-8) - Michael Henderson / electrical bass (2 - Dave Kingdom of the Netherlands / electrical bass (3,5), double bass (4,6,7) - Billy Cobham / drums (1,4,6-8), triangle (3,8) - Al Foster / drums (2) - Billy Hart / drums (2) - Jack DeJohnette / drums (3-7) - Airto Moreira / percussion (1,3,6), cuica (3,4,7,8), berimbau (4,7,8), Indian instruments (6) - Badal Roy / tabla (2) - James Mtume / African percussion (2) - Bihari Sharima / tamboura (1,4,7,8), tabla (1,8) |
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