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Miles Davis is a genius, or at least an extremely talented artist. “Sketches of Spain” is one of the most well-known albums of Miles Davis. If some already jumped into the conclusion that the 1960 record issued by Columbia is a masterpiece, let me contradict them right away. “Sketches of Spain” is surely not an atrocious piece of garbage, but certainly can’t stand comparison with such impeccable works of art as “Kind of Blue” and “Bitches’ Brew”.

Obviously, most of the success of the record comes from the first track alone, an adaptation of a piece written by the contemporary Spanish composer, Joachim Rodrigo. After a friend had played him the concerto a few times, Miles said that he couldn’t get the tune out of his mind. His long time associate Gil Evans soon started to rewrite it and extend the middle section in order to adapt it to the coper instrument (it was originally written for guitar and orchestra). As Mr. Davis said, the melody is incredibly addictive, not to say catchy. But 87 percent of the credit (feel free to correct any wrong calculations) goes to good ol’ Jo Ro. Jazz lovers sometimes have a grouchy side and it’s no surprise the venture has been criticized as not being inventive, as being pretentious and pointless and even as not being jazz in substance nor in form. I’m not backing what I consider pure bitterness but the result is all the same, I don’t like these 16 minutes of music. The problem lies in a certain drowsiness rapidly invading me. After looking for a bit of soul for the first few minutes, I can’t help starting to snooze or thinking about other things depending on how good my sleep was the night before.

The other tracks, all based on Spanish culture and music and the later three composed by the conductor, are a mixed bag of fun and disappointment. Fun because of the intro of saeta and its colourful fanfare or the interpretation of a score originally written by Manuel De Falla on will o’the wisp. But Miles Davis produced milestones that gave birth to a genre (“Birth Of The Cool”, “Kind Of Blue” and its modal approach or its electric counterpart, “Bitches’Brew”). He also experimented like no other did (the dated, but entertaining, funky and synthetic “Tutu”). In comparison, this tribute to Spain, with its not too successful emphasis on flamenco, sounds rather mellow (but that’s intended). You could argue that this record is just different, but if your craving for rich orchestrations and Davis-Evans collaborations is too strong, I’ll advise you to check out “Porgy and Bess” first.

Gil and Miles were ambitious when carrying out this project and you can’t really blame them for that but once again, with such essential works in his repertoire, I’ll recommend you to give this a try after you already digested a good ten of the records played by the son of a well-off family who loved to play the punk. As for Gil Evans, “Out of the Cool” and “The Individualism Of Gil Evans” are better places to start with.