DAVIS' FINAL AND MOST IMPRESSIVE PAIRING WITH ARRANGER GIL EVANS YIELDS WATERSHED INNOVATIONS
1/4" / 15 IPS analog master to DSD 64 to analog console to lathe
Miles Davis and Gil Evans bridged styles and collaborated on high-concept projects a total of three times during their celebrated career. For their final act, they created Sketches of Spain, a peak moment in each luminary's career and a transformative album that weds Spanish themes, lush orchestrations, romantic timbres, and Davis' increasingly lyrical methods in a tender ceremony that continues to resonate more than five decades after its original release.
Tracklist:
A1 Concierto De Aranjuez
A2 Will O' The Wisp
B1 The Pan Piper
B2 Saeta
B3 Solea
Part of Mobile Fidelity's Miles Davis catalog restoration series, the genre-defying 1960 classic has been given the ultimate white-gloves treatment. Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed at RTI, this exquisite 180g LP significantly expands the soundstage that frames the orchestra and digs deep to eradicate a dryness that many critics have found as an anathema to its overall enjoyment. Here, at last, is the full-figured perspective long deserved by the woodwinds, strings, and percussion, all of which come alive with previously unheard definition and detail.
With both Evans and Davis attracted to the blues undercurrents permanently entrenched in the Spanish flamenco strains, listeners can finally wholly detect the myriad microdynamic tonalities, brooding ostinato devices, and minor pedal points that stamp the compositions with divine sensibility and goffered effect.
Multi-note motifs, brief improvisational solos, fanfare sweeps, and contrapuntal exchanges inform the flamenco-spiced pieces, but so do unconventionally voiced instruments that come into full relief on this reissue. Davis' Harmon-muted trumpet is abetted by an assortment of bassoons and French horns that create pleasing contrasts and sounds (pp, mf, ppp) that get to the heart of Sketches of Spain: splashes of color. Seldom, if ever, did Davis ever so expressively and liberally paint with color. And in Evans, he has a likewise-minded partner to help draw out variegated shades, adamantine layers, and striated distinctions.
Recording information:
Title: Sketches Of Spain
Artist: Miles Davis
Genre: Pop-Rock
Media: 1x 180g LP Vinyl Stereo 33rpm, Limited, Numbered, Remastered, . Original Master Recording. Mastered from 1/4", 15ips Original Analog Master Tape to DSD64 to Analog Console to Lathe. Remastered by Krieg Wunderlich @ Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab on The Gain 2 Ultra Analog System. Specially Plated & Pressed on 180g High-Definition Vinyl in the USA.
Label: MoFi - Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Cat#: MFSL1-375
Released: 2013 in US
Original release: 1960 by Columbia CL 1480
EAN: 0821797137515
Discogs rel.#: 4923105
