30 Day Album Challenge #Day 6

Welcome back to my 30 Album Challenge

Day 6: A Favourite Double Album.

Bit of continuity here as I selected a double album for my choice yesterday, though that was more by accident as opposed to design. Also yesterday’s album has lost out on the double status on its release on CD.

So, my choice today was a double album in release on Vinyl and later on CD where the album was expanded to make full use of the available media.

The album is Big Fun by Miles Davis, which was released in 1974 while Miles had gone on a recording sabbatical due to mental, physical and creative burn out. The album contains material from various different sessions including the Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson sessions but on the whole, to me at least, is much more accessible than either of those albums.

Somewhat dismissed on initial release it had a reappraisal upon its subsequent re-release. Notably a number of tracks involve Indian instruments such as the Sitar, and Miles evan uses a Mute which gives his Trumpet a tone similar to the Sitar giving the music a haunting tone which contrasts to the heavy funk bass lines and electric grooves from Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea on the keys.

Since the majority of the tracks have extended play times (two clock in at over 25 minutes a piece), here 3the single edit of the opening track “Great Expectations”.

This appeared on the CD reissue in 2001 and is one of only two tracks that clock in at under 10 minutes duration