Finding flamenco in Sketches of Spain: An analytical study of musical transmission

This study illuminates Miles Davis and Gil Evans’s engagement with flamenco music, with a primary focus on the compositions “Saeta” and “Solea” from their collaborative album Sketches of Spain. This extraordinary album is highly influential in the field of jazz composition and arranging. Its significance is attested to both by its sales numbers as well as its recent adoption into the performance repertoire of academic and professional ensembles, including four recent recordings featuring respected contemporary jazz performers. The music on Sketches of Spain is credited as either compositions or arrangements by Gil Evans. The first two tracks, the “Adagio” from Concierto de Aranjuez and “Will o’ the Wisp,” are Evans’s arrangements of classical compositions by Rodrigo and da Falla, which have previously been analyzed by scholars such as Lajoie in part by comparing Evans’s arrangements with the original scores. The final three tracks on Sketches of Spain are credited as Evans’s compositions and have been commonly acknowledged to derive from Spanish folk music. The degree to which Evans engaged with or adapted this folk music has not previously been established. The final two pieces, “Saeta” and “Solea,” are named after the common flamenco song forms, saeta and soleá/soleares. Discussion of “Saeta” and “Solea” by scholars and biographers of Evans and Davis generally presumes that these pieces represent straightforward examples of the flamenco styles for which they are named. Scholars of the flamenco jazz style conversely presume that these two pieces do not have more than a superficial similarity to flamenco. Perhaps due to the unavailability of scores for these flamenco pieces, these compositions have not previously been analyzed in relation to their source material. This study proposes flamenco sources for “Saeta” and “Solea” by presenting the author’s own transcriptions of flamenco recordings that would have been available in the late 1950s and aligning them with elements of Evans’s compositions. It is demonstrated that melodic elements of “Saeta” were largely derived from a performance of saeta recorded in Seville by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, with additional elements drawn from a score included in Irving Brown’s travelogue, Deep Song: Adventures with Gypsy Songs and Singers in Andalusia and Other Lands. “Solea” is demonstrated to contain elements that correspond with typical performances of soleares, with a specific performance by vocalist Tomás Pavón and guitarist Melchor de Marchena is proposed as a model. Many corresponding elements to “Solea” are presented, drawn from the parts of both Pavón and de Marchena. It is argued that these flamenco elements were transformed in both pieces through improvisation, at the levels of both composition and performance, to become new compositions by Evans. Most scholarly studies of Sketches of Spain have focused on Evans’s compositions and arrangements. This study also considers the influence of flamenco music on Miles Davis. Davis’s Phrygian-mode improvisations on “Flamenco Sketches” (recorded shortly before Sketches of Spain) and “Teo” (recorded shortly afterwards) are demonstrated to correspond with previously discussed flamenco examples. Evidence is provided to suggest that, while Davis may have outlined flamenco melodies on “Flamenco Sketches,” it is in his solo on “Teo” that he demonstrates an in-depth engagement with the stylistic embellishments of traditional flamenco singers. The study concludes with a discussion of the resonances Miles Davis may have perceived between his experience as a Black American jazz musician and that of the Spanish Romany people who originated flamenco music, using quotations from his Autobiography as a starting point.U of I OnlySchool of Music polic