Miles Davis, artwork by Michael Symonds
After hearing Bill Evans's remarkable Peace Piece (1958) for solo piano, Miles Davis re-upped his ex-sideman for two sessions that yielded Kind of Blue. Refashioning Evans's Satiesque ostinato, Miles overlays a revolving series of five scales evoking what Jelly Roll Morton called "the Spanish tinge," something Davis had explored on Miles Ahead (1957) and would again a few months later on his
Sketches of Spain. With gloriously lucid solos all around (especially Coltrane's), Flamenco Sketches lasts 9½ minutes, but you want it to go on forever. Which is precisely how long this breathtakingly beautiful masterpiece of modern jazz will live. Forever.