Sketches Of Spain (50th Anniversary Edition) [Digipak]

Performer: Miles Davis
Artist: Gil Evans; Johnny Coles; Jimmy Cleveland; Paul Chambers; Elvin Jones; Jimmy Cobb
Producer: Teo Macero; Richard Seidel (Reissue)
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Personnel: Miles Davis (trumpet, flugelhorn); Janet Putnam (harp); Harold Feldman (flute, clarinet, oboe); Eddie Caine (flute, flugelhorn); Albert Block (flute); Danny Bank (bass clarinet); Romeo Penque (oboe); Jack Knitzer (bassoon); Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Taft Jordan, Bernie Glow (trumpet); Tony Miranda, Joe Singer, John Barrows, James Buffington, Earl Chapin (French horn); Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak (trombone); Jimmy McAllister, Billy Barber (tuba); Paul Chambers (upright bass); Jimmy Cobb (drums); Elvin Jones, Jose Mangual (percussion); Gil Evans. Audio Remasterer: Mark Wilder. Liner Note Authors: Gunther Schuller; Richard Seidel. Arranger: Gil Evans. Along with Kind of Blue, In a Silent Way, and Round About Midnight, Sketches of Spain is one of Miles Davis' most enduring and innovative achievements. Recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 -- after Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley had left the band -- Davis teamed with Canadian arranger Gil Evans for the third time. Davis brought Evans the album's signature piece, "Concierto de Aranjuez," after hearing a classical version of it at bassist Joe Mondragon's house. Evans was as taken with it as Davis was, and set about to create an entire album of material around it. The result is a masterpiece of modern art. On the "Concierto," Evans' arrangement provided an orchestra and jazz band -- Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, and Elvin Jones -- the opportunity to record a classical work as it was. The piece, with its stunning colors and intricate yet transcendent adagio, played by Davis on a fl�gelhorn with a Harmon mute, is one of the most memorable works to come from popular culture in the 20th century. Davis' control over his instrument is singular, and Evans' conducting is flawless. Also notable are "Saeta," with one of the most amazing technical solos of Davis' career, and the album's closer, "Solea," which is conceptually a narrative piece, based on an Andalusian folk song, about a woman who encounters the procession taking Christ to Calvary. She sings the narrative of his passion and the procession -- or parade -- with full brass accompaniment moving along. Cobb and Jones, with flamenco-flavored percussion, are particularly wonderful here, as they allow the orchestra to indulge in the lushly passionate arrangement Evans provided to accompany Davis, who was clearly at his most challenged here, though he delivers with grace and verve. Sketches of Spain is the most luxuriant and stridently romantic recording Davis ever made. To listen to it in the 21st century is still a spine-tingling experience, as one encounters a multitude of timbres, tonalities, and harmonic structures seldom found in the music called jazz. ~ Thom Jurek The crown jewel of the epic Evans/Davis triptych that began with MILES AHEAD and PORGY AND BESS, SKETCHES OF SPAIN is as emotionally compelling as any performance in the trumpeter's remarkable body of works. Combining as it does the emotional gravity of two cultures--the deep song of flamenco music and the rich lament of the blues--SKETCHES OF SPAIN is a musical hybrid of enormous power and beauty. Gil Evans' immense canvas of orchestral colors inspires some of Davis' most deeply felt solo flights. He paints vast vistas of velvety, shimmering night sounds, and through it all runs the mountainous backbone of Spain's native rhythms and chants. The centerpiece of SKETCHES OF SPAIN is the Evans/Davis treatment of the second movement of Rodrigo's "Concierto De Aranjuez." Evans' charts engage Davis in a shifting, insistent dialogue, italicizing the trumpeter's subtle variations and timbral ecstasies with magnificent orchestral flourishes. The surreal patina of three flutes and harp, high muted trumpets and woodwinds, and subterranean trombones, French horns and tuba that define one of the main variations on the theme, is a majestic foil for Davis' expressive tones. Gil Evans liked to say that after Louis Armstrong, no one had affected the sound of the trumpet like Miles Davis. Miles fashioned a vibrato-less, introspective brass cry, made all the more lovely by his lush use of the middle and lower registers. Davis' manipulation of pitch on "Saeta" and "Solea" is so idiomatic, so vocalized, so full of revel and lament, it pierces your heart with heroic resignation and longing. SKETCHES OF SPAIN stands alone as one of the pillars of modern music.

Q (1/00, p.134) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...fierce Spanish folk melodies...took orchestral jazz in a new direction....features Davis' trumpet in all its drifting, dry, abstract beauty." Down Beat (p.61) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "With SKETCHES OF SPAIN, Davis' music continued its modal moves away from bebop's busy density, opting to highlight his strengths, which emphasized feeling and lyric expression over technique." Down Beat (1960) - 5 Stars - Excellent - "...One of the most important musical triumphs that this century has yet produced....If there is to be a new jazz, a SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, then this is the beginning..." Goldmine - 3.5 Stars - "...Brilliantly remixed..." Record Collector (magazine) (p.98) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "Almost panoramic in scope and fusing jazz with classical music, the album kicked off with an epic 16-minute version of Spanish composer Rodrigo's guitar concerto, transcribed for trumpet and orchestra."

Few musicians have managed to change the course of music--trumpeter Miles Davis did it several times. An early disciple of Charlie Parker, Davis created an austere, understated approach that became the model for cool. His superb albums in the 1950s made him a star, and in the following decade, he brought small-group jazz to the limit before he unapologetically (and, for some, unforgivably) took on jazz-rock. After a break, he re-emerged in the '80s with a mixture of pop and dense, bristling funk. All the while, his refusal to follow anyone but his own muse made him both a hero and an enigma--either way, he was one of the most magnetic, influential figures in American music.

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