Flamenco Sketches
Flamenco Sketches ( German: Flamenco sketches ) is a jazz composition by Miles Davis and Bill Evans. The ballad was first published on the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue in 1959.
The composition
The piece has no melody written down and is rather defined by a set of chord changes, which is improvised on the application of the various modes of the major scale of each tonality. Peter Niklas Wilson wrote: ". Composition for him was just not precisely pre-structuring a definitive idea of sound, but a pulse for a musical process with an uncertain outcome " The Spanish sound of the piece is due to the use of the Phrygian dominant scale (also Spanish called - Phrygian scale ), a heptatonic scale, which is used in the Spanish flamenco.
Bill Evans described the piece in the liner notes as follows: " Flamenco Sketches is a series of five scales, as long as you can play each as desired by the soloist until he has the series played out. " Martin Spring wrote: " So shifted the modal jazz, the architecture away from the predictable chord changes and, as we see from Evans note, away from a predetermined duration of a solo. "
In the initial reception of the piece Jimmy Cobb played the drums with brushes, which create a peaceful and relaxing way of the piece.
Effect
Mark Bruges Meier wrote in rollingstone.de on the effect of Flamenco Sketches on the collaboration between Gil Evans and Miles Davis on Sketches of Spain, " Davis went to his third collaboration with the Canadian arranger Gil Evans. He wanted to pick up where he had to, Flamenco Sketches ' to> Kind Of Blue stopped .' "
Reception
Alan Kurtz wrote at jazz.com over the original version of the song: " With all round lovely clear Soli ( especially Coltrane 's), Flamenco Sketches lasts nine minutes, but you want it to go on forever. Just as long as this breathtakingly beautiful masterpiece of modern jazz will live. Eternally. "
Other recordings
Joe Henderson took the piece for his album So Near, So Far ( Musings for Miles ) on. Chris Botti recorded the piece in 2009 for his album Chris Botti in Boston and plays the piece regularly at live performances.