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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Freestyle Fusion Fireworks Mar 07, 2009
When the double album was initially released, each side contained an extended piece from critical junctures in the ever-changing vision of fusion; Great Expectations/Orange Lady, Lonely Fire (Bitches Brew), Go Ahead John (A Tribute to Jack Johnson) and Ife (On the Corner).
The CD took the original 98:45 and expanded it to 142:24 with Recollections (a reworking of In a Silent Way), Trevere, The Little Bull Frog and Yaplet.
Though oftentimes dismissed as being filler, the textures of each soundscape from the original album are extraordinary, as the additional four numbers bolster the peek into the oftentimes freestyle approach of taking a concept and jamming to fusion fireworks.
Davis was moving swiftly and paving a trail that he dared others to follow. The pace in the chase has yet to slow down.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Ambient Meditative Formless Art By a True Master Oct 04, 2007
I regret not listening to this earlier. But I may have not been ready for it when it came. I got into jazz when Jazz-Rock was starting to get a bad name. The Prog-Rock form had become ball-and-chain that caused both Jazz Purists and those searching for a valid creative art form to turn the other way. Pop Jazz, or Fusion, would later become even more formulaic than Rock itself.
Where could Jazz go, in the late 60s? It had transcended form with Free Jazz. Miles knew where it should go. Joe Zawinul knew. Take the heavy electric instrumentation and fuse it with world-class percussion and keep it free from form.
If you listen to Great Expectations and many other cuts on Big Fun, they are largely meditative, and ambient in nature. Sure, there are visitations and re-visitations to the form of melody of Miles' trumpet entering and leaving at times, but overall the sonic landscape resembles more of a living entity--an organic ocean of sound. Waves pass over the listener and if you don't float on this peaceful and funky soup of sound, you'll drown.
The search for a song-form or a repetitive verse chorus aaba song-form with which to hold onto, is something that most listeners take for granted. If you don't have the teat of the rigid form to suck on, then you'll cry and put the music down, which is what critics did back when Miles moved beyond jazz, really. Miles recognized himself first and foremost as an artist and musician--not as simply a Jazz trumpet player, or even a great band-leader, although he was those things. Those who would shortly criticize him for leaving behind his bread-and-butter, were mad because he didn't let them suck on the teat of tried-and-true form.
But Miles was an artist who destroyed the last form of the medium by switching instrumentations and letting-in the age-old perfection of space. He was always a master of space. This album is as much a Miles-stone as Kind Of Blue, and In A Silent Way. It is potentially a deeply spiritual experience to hear this album and it is very personal.
Music and artistry transcending the bounds of time and space as only the great Master could achieve it. Listen to it! You can hear yourself inside it, and in doing so, you can move on from demands that that the music take forms.
In allowing the music to simply BE, you can free yourself. Let yourself go, and become empowered by this beautiful album of sound.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
No, that cover's not suggestive at all! *COUGH* Jul 08, 2007
I'm not big on fusion, but I can tell you that Big Fun is one of my favorite albums from the period, along with In a Silent Way. One of Miles' more misunderstood works, and I'm glad it was given such a good reissue.
The record starts off with Joe Zawinul's best song (at least his best song with Miles), Great Expectations. Recorded shortly after Bitches Brew, it's a two-part suite, the second half being the Weather Report classic Orange Lady. It's arguably the best song on the album: twenty-seven minutes, and I don't want it any shorter. I especially like the Indian instrumentation.
Next up is the slow, spacey, funky Ife, an outtake from the On the Corner sessions. I really wish Miles had decided to include it on that album, as it could have saved it from being a total disaster. Recollections (again coming from the period just after the Bitches Brew sessions) is next up, a moody Zawinul classic. This, along with three other songs (I'll get to those), can only be found on the CD version of Big Fun. It's a collector's item, but it's also a very good piece of music. Trevere (yet another Brew-era outtake, and again previously unreleased) follows this, and really it's the album's only bad point. I hate the stupid haunted-house organ.
Then it's back to the good stuff. Go Ahead John (the lone outtake from the Jack Johnson sessions found on this LP) is my other favorite here. It's like Hendrix, if Hendrix had collaborated with Miles (and he probably would have, had he lived longer - the two were friends, of course). Lots of heavy guitar on that song. I've heard it's supposed to be an embryonic take of Right Off, but I disagree: it doesn't have the dated-sounding organ that ruins the otherwise stellar composition, and there's no uncredited Sly Stone borrowings. One fine song!
Lonely Fire (once again coming from the post-Bitches Brew sessions) is another. One of Miles' signature pensive, haunting ballads; it reminds me of Brew's Sanctuary, only it's so much better.
The Little Blue Frog is from the same sessions as Lonely Fire and most the rest; a good funk-rocker, though it drifts a bit.
Yephet makes for still another standout performance; a ten-minute moody Indian funk song. Very good!
Oh, and the liner notes are worthwhile - very informative, good Bennie Maupin essay, and great photos! So listen closely, and have big fun.
4 of 8 found the following review helpful:
 Leftovers Jun 16, 2007
Of the studio albums from Miles' electric period, this is by far the weakest. Check out In A Silent Way (expanded), BBrew and Get Up With It before listening to this one.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Miles Ahead... Mar 14, 2007
This music is light years ahead of any Jazz that has been made since the time of its release to present day...the only other jazz artist to even venture out this far was Sun Ra. It can be said with confidence that the last great Jazz Giant was Miles. This is not to dismiss other great jazz artists during that time or since then, but all who come after are only disciples.
No one explored and pushed the music forward, in contemporary terms, more the Sir Miles. This is probably one of the best records of the so called "electric" period before he went on hiatus for 5 years. Stand out tracks is the beautiful "Lonely Fire" a deep probing track that is almost trance like and "Go Ahead John", which is sonically unique and a great example of what can be produced by free artistic expression.
Miles was also on the forefront of album cover artistry, being one of the first artists to demand to have black images on his records sleeves, which was unheard of up until the mid-60s. The Big Fun LP cover is one of my favorites, for obvious reasons.
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