Day Three: Still dreaming!

As I mentioned today about Moby Grape another I think more controversial genre was fusion. In 1968 Miles Davis watched and was influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown. He saw all these young kids digging these artists. It was an interesting time in popular culture at this time. Jazz was for the old folk and Rock and Roll was where it was at. Miles Davis saw this and started getting a group of artist together to play the same stuff he heard. We all know about Bitches Brew and Tribute to Jack Johnson but the album I stumbled upon after those was Big Fun.


I was 19 years old and seeing a friend of mine, who I greatly respected at the book store he worked at. He worked in the music department at the information counter. At this counter there were 6 CD's in front of his desk. This was one of them. Domestically this Miles Davis CD was not able to be found he told me. So I asked my friend how can I get a copy. He told me he would make a cassette copy for the car. If you like it he said, I can order you a copy. The import was pricey at $55.00, Thus, my Jazz/Fusion mind became open to just about everything he told me about. Even though this came out in 1974, the height of the fusion time. Most of this was recorded in 1969 through 1972. I played the cassette so much that i actually had to ask my friend to make me another copy. I broke the first one. This stuff rocked.

The Songs where long and adventurous. There was so much going on. The shortest song was near twenty minutes in length while the longest was close to a half an hour. A few years later with my import tucked away for whenever I felt like it, my friend came up to me and handed me the American re-issue of it. He told me it was a gift, because he knew how much I liked the album. By then I had a great stereo and could experience it at full blast.

It had all these people I would later listen to; John McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Billy Cobham, Chick Corea and lasty Joe Zawinul.



For your listening pleasure, I have included this for download. It should be bought like everything else I tell you about but with this excitement take a listen for yourself. Enjoy!

Pt.1
http://sharebee.com/0c9f5966
Pt.2
http://sharebee.com/74ee903b
Pt.3
http://sharebee.com/ebe588e