Sketches of Spain

Sketches of Spain
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	1960
Recorded	November 20, 1959; March 10, 1960 at Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York
Genre	Jazz
Length	41:19
Label	Columbia
Producer	Teo Macero & Irving Townsend
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Down Beat [1] Penguin Guide to Jazz [2] Q [3] Rolling Stone (favorable) link
Miles Davis chronology
Kind of Blue (1959) Sketches of Spain (1960) Someday My Prince Will Come (1961)

Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960.

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. (An extended version of the second movement of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez is also included, as well as a song called "Will o' the Wisp", from the ballet El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla.)

Reception

Sketches of Spain is considered to be one of the most accessible albums of Davis's career: the most recent edition of the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD describes it as "elevated light music". Less improvisational than much other jazz, contemporaries suggested that Sketches of Spain was something other than jazz. Davis replied (according to Rolling Stone magazine), "It's music, and I like it".^[4]

In 2003, the album was ranked number 356 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.^[4]

Track listing

Side one

1. "Concierto de Aranjuez" (Adagio) (Joaquín Rodrigo) – 16:19
2. " Will O' The Wisp" (Manuel de Falla) – 3:47

Side two

3. "The Pan Piper" (Gil Evans) – 3:52
4. "Saeta" (Evans) – 5:06
5. "Solea" (Evans) – 12:15

2000 reissue bonus tracks

6. "Song of Our Country" (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

Personnel

In alphabetical order

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (July 2008)

• In 2002 Buckethead released his ninth full length album called Electric Tears containing a song called "Sketches of Spain (For Miles)".
• A sample from "Concierto de Aranjuez" was used in the Chroma Key song "Before You Started".
• In the Clint Eastwood film The Gauntlet (1977) the Jerry Fielding soundtrack music for the climactic gauntlet sequence is an almost identical copy of the "Solea" track.
• Two Almodóvar films have featured songs from this 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 "Satea" is heard in a ballet scene.
• The band Tears for Fears has a song called "Sketches of Pain" on the album Raoul and the Kings of Spain.
• 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.
• New York screamo band Saetia takes their name from a misspelling of the track "Saeta."
• 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.

References

1. ^ Tower Records listing
2. ^ Sketches of Spain rankings and ratings at AcclaimedMusic.net
3. ^ Sketches of Spain details at CDuniverse.com
4. ^ ^{a b} "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 2003-11-18. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/milesdavis/articles/story/6626130/356_sketches_of_spain. Retrieved on 2008-10-22.