![]() Excerpts from the article are reprinted below through the permission of the Ziff- Davis Publishing Company: ![]() The recording took place in late 1959, and in the February, 1960 issue of Hi-Fi/Stereo Review, I described what happened in the studio on one Sunday afternoon. He can read my mind and I can read his."įor the album, Gil rewrote and extended the middle section of the Concierto. I work out something he takes it home and works on it some more and then we figure out how we're going to do it. As we usually do, we planned the program first by ourselves for about two months. Then when Gil and I decided to do this album, I played him the record and he liked it. "After listening to it for couple of weeks," Miles said later, "I couldn't get it out of my mind. The album came about because, when Miles was on the West Coast early in 1959, a friend had played him a recording of Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra by the contemporary Spanish composer, Joaquin Rodrigo (ML 5345). And Evans also indicates a thorough absorption of the Spanish musical temper which he has transmuted into his own uncompromisingly personal style. It is as if Miles had been born of Andalusian gypsies but, instead of picking up the guitar, had decided to make a trumpet the expression of his cante hondo ("deep song"). What is most remarkable is the surprising authenticity of phrasing and timbre with which he plays. Davis, I believe, has rarely if ever soloed with such concentration of emotion, as in several sections of this album particularly in Concierto de Aranjuez and Saeta. A brooding, dramatic Spanish sound and feeling pervade all the works on this record. In Sketches from Spain, the two have gone on to challenge themselves even further. Miles, however, played so strikingly from inside the music that I'm convinced the Davis-Evans version of the score is the most expressive yet recorded. Porgy and Bess was, in a sense, even more challenging because the score was so familiar. The weight of that instrument is most sensitively calculated in relation both to the others used and to the particular effect the chord is meant to have." In any given chord careful consideration is given to the best instrument to play each constituent note. In elaboration and richness of resource they surpass anything previously attempted in big band jazz and constitute the only wholly original departure in that field outside of Ellington's work. Of the former, British critic Max Harrison wrote: "These scores represent the full expression of Evans' powers. The uniquely creative collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans has already resulted in two extraordinarily evocative Columbia albums-Miles Ahead (CL 1041) and Porgy and Bess (CL 1274/CS 8085). Recorded Novemand March 10 – 11, 1960 in New York City. To buy this recording from, click here: Sketches of Spain To download this recording via iTunes, click here: Sketches of Spain - Miles Davis
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