Rewind album: Sketches of Spain, by Miles Davis
In August 1959, Miles Davis released his magnum opus and jazz's bestselling album ever, Kind of Blue. It was the moment when, to borrow a phrase from MTV, Davis stopped being polite and started getting real.
Miles Davis
Columbia
In August 1959, Miles Davis released his magnum opus and jazz's bestselling album ever, Kind of Blue. It was the moment when, to borrow a phrase from MTV, Davis stopped being polite and started getting real.
Kind of Blue was hailed as a work of genius, particularly for its departure from the bebop style perfected by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie that had become jazz's gold standard at the time.
Where bebop was fast, darting, and syncopated, Kind of Blue was cool, melancholic, and thoughtful. The music relied on an innovative, open "modal" format, theorised by Davis' friend and composer George Russell, which used scales rather than chords, and offered an improvising soloist more time and freedom to experiment.
Less than a year later, Davis released Sketches of Spain which, unlike Blue, was noted for its accessibility over innovation. In Blue, Davis had created a new sound, but in Sketches he looked back to classical music. Contemporary listeners and critics wondered if it was even jazz.
The album's title is somewhat literal: Davis and his arranger-friend Gil Evans created the album with specific reference to Spanish folk and classical music.