Big Fun is about half great. Released in 1974, when Miles was spending a lot of time on the road with his funk-metal band, it’s composed of four side-long tracks (emphasis on long; he and Teo Macero were really testing the limits of vinyl’s capacity) recorded between 1969 and 1972. The first of these, “Great Expectations,” is actually two pieces — “Great Expectations” and “Orange Lady” — Scotch-taped together; it dates back to the Bitches Brew era, when the studio band included soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, two keyboardists, electric guitar, sitar, an upright and an electric bassist, drums, and two percussionists, one playing tablas. It’s sort of aimless, but with just enough exoticism to stay semi-interesting. The second piece, “Ife,” is left over from the On The Corner sessions of June 1972; Davis’ trumpet is fed through a wah-wah pedal, keyboards and electric sitar zing and zap in the mix, there are two drummers and two percussionists, and electric bassist Michael Henderson anchors it all with dubby precision.

Side Three is where Big Fun becomes indispensable. “Go Ahead John” is a total triumph, one of the greatest things Miles released in the 1970s. Primarily a showcase for John McLaughlin’s most ferocious blues playing, it features some of the most elaborate production Teo Macero ever attempted. Not only are both McLaughlin and Davis heavily overdubbed (at one point, the trumpeter is heard playing two solos simultaneously, weaving around each other in an almost New Orleans-ish, polyphonic style), but the drums are sliced up and bounced from the left to the right speaker in a way that turns the rhythm into shards. And when McLaughlin solos at about the six-minute mark, it’s absolutely terrifying, like a hornet the size of a car flying in angry loops around your head. The album concludes with “Lonely Fire,” a track from 1970 that marks one of Wayne Shorter’s final studio appearances with Davis. It’s very atmospheric, somewhere between In A Silent Way and the early work of Weather Report, the group Shorter and keyboardist Joe Zawinul would form after leaving Davis’ orbit. Its general drifting feel makes it a good way to bring this long double album to a close.