Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain Yellow Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This 180g yellow vinyl pressing was made in the EU and includes an MP3 download card. Sketches of Spain is a landmark of third stream, the meeting of jazz, European classical music and folk traditions.

This edition

Yellow vinyl
180g vinyl
Download card included
Pressed in the EU
Stereo mix

About the album

It started with a night out. Miles Davis's wife Frances insisted he come with her to see flamenco dancer Roberto Iglesias, and Davis left so taken with it that he bought every flamenco album he could find at Colony Records in New York. Around the same time a friend handed him a recording of Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, and he took it straight to Gil Evans, his partner on several earlier orchestral projects.

Evans copied the music off the record by ear, since there was no score, and the pair built the adagio into a sixteen-minute centrepiece, with Davis on flugelhorn and trumpet. Studying Alan Lomax's field recordings from Galicia and Andalusia, they added "Will o' the Wisp" from Manuel de Falla's El amor brujo, plus "The Pan Piper," "Saeta" and "Solea." It was recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio and was the first Davis album produced by Teo Macero.

Evans said they never meant to make a Spanish album; they just meant to do the Concierto. As accidents go, it beats our last attempt at paella by some distance.

Also at Kops: more Miles Davis on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz