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From album
Kind of Blue
Miles Davis · 1959 · Track 5
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The story behind
Flamenco Sketches doesn't sound like a song, but rather like a journey that unfolds as it goes. There is no sheet music guiding every note: just a handful of chords and a warning: "here we improvise." Miles Davis's trumpet enters softly, almost shyly, over a piano vamp repeating four bars on a Cmaj7 and a G9sus4. It's the same pattern Bill Evans used in his piece Peace Piece, but here it serves as a gateway to a world where each musician decides how long to linger in each mode. John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley explore scales ranging from pure Ionian to Harmonic Minor over D Phrygian Dominant, while Paul Chambers's double bass and Jimmy Cobb's drums weave a rhythm that seems to flow effortlessly. The magic lies in the fact that, despite there being no written melody, everyone knows exactly where they are and where they're headed: it's jazz in its purest form, where structure is freedom.
It was recorded by Miles Davis in two sessions in 1959 at 30th Street Studio in New York City, with a sextet that included Bill Evans on piano —except in Freddie Freeloader, where Wynton Kelly took his place—. The album, Kind of Blue, was released in August of that year and became the best-selling jazz album in history, but Flamenco Sketches doesn't aim to sell anything: it aims to let each note breathe. The version most people know lasts 9 minutes and 25 seconds, but reissues often include a complete alternate take, the only one that survived from those two days of recording. There are no choruses or forced arrangements: just six musicians, a borrowed studio, and the decision to trust that sometimes, the best thing that can happen is not knowing what comes next.