Sketches of Spain

LIMITED EDITION CLASSIC LPs.

HIGH-DEFINITION PREMIUM VINYL PRESSING FOR SUPER FIDELITY.

THE WAY THIS MUSIC WAS MEANT TO BE HEARD.

180 gram VINYL-AUDIOPHILE PRESSING.

Sketches of Spain was Miles Davis and Gil Evans' third conceptual album (they had

worked together back in the late 1940s on the celebrated "Birth of the Cool" nonet

sessions and would record their first conceptual LP Miles Ahead in 1957, followed

by their adaptation of George Gershwin's music for Porgy and Bess in 1958). The

trumpeter stated in his autobiography that the whole thing came out of listening to

Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez". Even though the slow

movement of "Concierto de Aranjuez" was the main feature of the album (Miles and Gil

later performed it live at Carnegie Hall), its original composer, Joaquín Rodrigo, wasn't

pleased with the Davis-Evans version. As Miles stated: "I liked the record and thought

everybody played well on it and that Gil had arranged his ass off, but it didn't have a

large impact on me. Joaquin Rodrigo, the composer of Concierto de Aranjuez, said he

didn't like the record, and he -his composition -was the reason I did Sketches of Spain

in the first place. Since he was getting a royalty for the use of the song on the record, I

told this person who had played it for him, 'Let's see if he likes it after he starts getting

those big royalty checks'. I never heard anything about or from him after that." Despite

Joaquín Rodrigo's reaction, Sketches of Spain was extremely successful from the start.