Sketches of Spain

Sketches of Spain
File:Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain.png
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	July 18, 1960
Recorded	November 20, 1959; March 10, 1960 Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City
Genre	Third stream
Length	41:19
Label	Columbia
Producer	Teo Macero, Irving Townsend
Miles Davis chronology
Kind of Blue (1959)Kind of Blue1959 Sketches of Spain (1960) Someday My Prince Will Come (1961)Someday My Prince Will Come1961

Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. An extended version of the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (1939) is included, as well as a song called "Will o' the Wisp", from Manuel de Falla's ballet El amor brujo (1914–1915). Sketches of Spain is regarded as an exemplary recording of Third Stream, a musical fusion of jazz, European classical, and styles of world music.

Background

The album pairs Davis with arranger and composer Gil Evans, with whom he had collaborated on several other projects, on a program of compositions largely derived from the Spanish folk tradition. Evans explained:

[We] hadn't intended to make a Spanish album. We were just going to do the Concierto de Aranjuez. A friend of Miles gave him the only album in existence with that piece. He brought it back to New York and I copied the music off the record because there was no score. By the time we did that, we began to listen to other folk music, music played in clubs in Spain... So we learned a lot from that and it ended up being a Spanish album. The Rodrigo, the melody is so beautiful. It's such a strong song. I was so thrilled with that.

Concierto de Aranjuez

The opening piece, taking up almost half the record, is an arrangement by Evans and Davis of the adagio movement of Concierto de Aranjuez, a concerto for guitar by the contemporary Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Following the faithful introduction of the concerto's guitar melody on flugelhorn, Evans' arrangement turns into a "quasi-symphonic, quasi-jazz world of sound", according to his biographer. The middle of the piece contains a "chorus" by Evans unrelated to the concerto but "echoed" in the other pieces on the album. The original melody then reappears in a darker mode.

Davis plays flugelhorn and later trumpet, attempting to connect the various settings musically. Davis commented at rehearsal, "The thing I have to do now is make things connect, make them mean something in what I play around it." Davis thought the concerto's adagio melody was "so strong" that "the softer you play it, the stronger it gets, and the stronger you play it, the weaker it gets", and Evans concurred.

According to Davis' biographer Chambers, the contemporary critical response to the arrangement was not surprising, especially given the scarcity of anything resembling a jazz rhythm in most of the piece. Martin Williams wrote that "the recording is something of a curiosity and a failure, as I think a comparison with any good performance of the movement by a classical guitarist would confirm". The composer Rodrigo was also not impressed, but royalties from the arrangement brought him "a lot of money", according to Evans.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Down Beat
Penguin Guide to Jazz
Pitchfork	(10.0/10)
Pitchfork	(8.0/10)
Q
Rolling Stone Album Guide

Sketches of Spain is widely considered by fans and critics to be one of the most accessible albums of Davis' career. It is less improvisational than much of his other work. Replying to suggestions that Sketches of Spain was something other than jazz, Davis told Rolling Stone magazine, "It's music, and I like it".

The Rolling Stone Album Guide calls it "a work of unparalleled grace and lyricism." In 2003, the album was ranked number 358 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Evans and Davis won the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition for Sketches of Spain.

Track listing

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Concierto de Aranjuez (Adagio)" (Joaquín Rodrigo)	16:19
2.	"Will o' the Wisp" (Manuel de Falla)	3:47

Side two
No.	Title	Length
3.	"The Pan Piper (a.k.a. Alborada de Vigo)" (traditional)	3:52
4.	"Saeta" (Gil Evans)	5:06
5.	"Solea" (Evans)	12:15

1997 reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Length
6.	"Song of Our Country" (Heitor Villa-Lobos, arranged by Evans)	3:23
7.	"Concierto de Aranjuez (alternative take; part 1)" (Rodrigo)	12:04
8.	"Concierto de Aranjuez (alternative take; part 2 ending" (Rodrigo)	3:33

Song title meanings

1. "Concierto de Aranjuez" was written about the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez.
2. "El Amor Brujo" is often translated as "The Bewitched Love" or "Love, the Sorcerer".
3. "Alborada de Vigo" means "daybreak in the city of Vigo".
4. "Saeta" is a type of religious song that is sung during the religious processions of Semana Santa in Seville, Spain.
5. "Solea" is a form of Flamenco music.

Personnel

In alphabetical order (Note: this list actually encompasses the total musicians used on several sessions in late 1959 and early 1960. The actual number of players on the pieces was 19.)

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In popular culture

• One of the music tracks in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is titled "Sketches of Pain", an obvious reference to "Sketches of Spain".
• Buckethead's 2002 album, Electric Tears, contains a song entitled "Sketches of Spain (For Miles)".
• Two Pedro Almodóvar films use songs from the album: Tacones lejanos (High Heels), where "Solea" is heard over the opening credits; and La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret), where "Saeta" is heard in a ballet scene.
• In Haruki Murakami's novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the main character owns a signed copy of Sketches of Spain.
• In the movie The Salton Sea, Val Kilmer's character plays an excerpt from the song Saeta on his trumpet. It is also a prevailing song throughout the movie.
• Hip hop producer DJ Premier sampled "Will O' the Wisp" for the tracks "Invasion" and "Wrath of the Math" for the Jeru The Damaja 1996 album Wrath of the Math.
• In 2010, a cover of the album was recorded featuring Lew Soloff, solo trumpet, with Steve Richman conducting the Harmonie Ensemble/New York.
• In concert, the Grateful Dead occasionally played a jam inspired by "Solea" that was dubbed by fans as "Spanish Jam". Examples of this jam can be heard on various concert recordings, including Dick's Picks Volume 6.
• The screamo band Saetia is named after a track on Sketches of Spain, "Saeta".
• Artist and filmmaker Bruce Conner used "Concierto de Aranjuez" (Adagio) as the soundtrack to his 1967 film The White Rose, a documentary about the removal of Jay DeFeo's magnum opus painting "The Rose" from her apartment.

External links

• Sketches of Spain Legacy Edition at Myspace (streamed copy where licensed)