Sketches of Spain

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Sketches of Spain

Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an United States jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s: he played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jaz...
, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960. The album pairs Davis with arranger and composer Gil Evans

Gil Evans

Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader, active in the United States. He played a seminal role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz-rock, and collaborated extensively with Miles Davis....
, 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

Joaquín Rodrigo

Joaqu?n Rodrigo Vidre was a composer of european classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being blind from an early age, he achieved great success....
's Concierto de Aranjuez
Concierto de Aranjuez

The Concierto de Aranjuez is a musical composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the spanish people composer Joaqu?n Rodrigo. Written in 1939 in music, it is probably Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century....
is also included, as well as a song called "Will o' the Wisp", from the ballet El amor brujo

El amor brujo

El amor brujo is a piece of music composed by Manuel de Falla. It was initially commissioned in 1914-15 as a gitaner?a by Pastora Imperio, a renowned gypsy dancer, and was scored for Voice instrumental music, actors, and chamber orchestra....
by Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spain composer of European classical music....
.)

ketches 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".

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Encyclopedia

Sketches of Spain is an album by Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Gil Evans

Joaquín Rodrigo

El amor brujo

Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spain composer of European classical music....
.)

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
Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J....
magazine), "It's music, and I like it".

In 2003, the album was ranked number 356 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J....
s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time is the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2003.Related news articles:* The list was based on the votes of 273 rock musicians, critics and industry figures, each of whom submitted a weighted list of 50 albums....
.

Track listing
Side one
"Concierto de Aranjuez
Concierto de Aranjuez

The Concierto de Aranjuez is a musical composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the spanish people composer Joaqu?n Rodrigo. Written in 1939 in music, it is probably Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century....
" (Adagio) (Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Rodrigo

Joaqu?n Rodrigo Vidre was a composer of european classical music and a virtuoso pianist. Despite being blind from an early age, he achieved great success....
) – 16:19
"Will o' the Wisp
Will o' the wisp

The will-o'-the-wisp, sometimes will-o'-wisp or ignis fatuus Latin, from ignis + fatuus , plural ignes fatui) refers to the ghostly lights sometimes seen at night or twilight ? often over bogs....
" (Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spain composer of European classical music....
) – 3:47
Side two
"The Pan Piper" (Gil Evans
Gil Evans

Gil Evans was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader, active in the United States. He played a seminal role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz-rock, and collaborated extensively with Miles Davis....
) – 3:52
"Saeta" (Evans) – 5:06
"Solea" (Evans) – 12:15
2000 reissue bonus tracks
"Song of Our Country" (Evans) – 3:23
"Concierto de Aranjuez" (alternative take; part 1) (Rodrigo) – 12:04
"Concierto de Aranjuez" (alternative take; part 2 ending) (Rodrigo) – 3:33

Personnel
In alphabetical order
Trivia

In 2002 Buckethead
Buckethead

Brian Patrick Carroll, better known as Buckethead, is an American musician and songwriter. He has released 25 solo albums and performed on over 50 more....
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
Chroma key

Chroma key is a technique for mixing two images or frames together, in which a color from one is removed , revealing another image behind it....
song "Before You Started".
In the Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American actor, film director, film producer and composer. He is known for his tough guy, anti-hero acting roles in Action films and western films, particularly in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s....
film The Gauntlet
The Gauntlet

The Gauntlet is a 1977 in film action film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. The film also stars Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and longtime personal friend Mara Corday who would appear with Eastwood in another three films....
(1977) the Jerry Fielding
Jerry Fielding

Jerry Fielding was an United States radio, record, Film score and television composer, Conducting, and Music director....
soundtrack music for the climactic gauntlet sequence is an almost identical copy of the "Solea" track.
"Saeta" was featured in two Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almod?var Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and Film producer.Almod?var is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation....
films: Tacones lejanos (High Heels), where it's heard over the opening credits; and La flor de mi secreto (The flower of my secret), in a ballet scene.
The band Tears for Fears
Tears for Fears

Tears for Fears are an England pop rock band formed in the early 1980s by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Founded after the dissolution of their first band, the Mod -influenced Graduate , they were initially associated with the New Wave music synthesizer bands of the early 1980s, but later branched out into mainstream rock and pop which led to...
has a song called "Sketches of Pain" on the album Raoul and the Kings of Spain
Raoul and the Kings of Spain

Raoul and the Kings of Spain is the fifth album by the British pop-rock band Tears for Fears. Like the prior album, Elemental , it is essentially a solo effort by Roland Orzabal....
.
In Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami

is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described by the Virginia Quarterly Review as "easily accessible, yet profoundly complex"....
's novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

is a novel by Haruki Murakami. The first published translation was by Alfred Birnbaum. The American translation and its British adaptation, dubbed the "only official translations" are by Jay Rubin and were first published in 1997 in literature....
, the main character owns a signed copy of Sketches of Spain.
In the movie The Salton Sea
The Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is a 2002 in film film starring Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio directed by D. J. Caruso.Tagline: If you're looking for the truth you have come to the wrong place....
, 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
Screamo

Screamo is a genre of music which predominantly evolved from hardcore punk, among other genres, in the early 1990s. The term "screamo" was initially applied to a more aggressive offshoot of emo that developed in San Diego in 1991, which used short, chaotically executed songs which grafted "spastic intensity to willfully experimental dissonan...
band Saetia
Saetia

Saetia was a New York City-based screamo band. Their name originates from a misspelling of the Miles Davis track "Saeta", from his album Sketches of Spain, which, in turn, was named after the saeta , a religious tradition of flamenco music....
takes their name from a misspelling of the track "Saeta."