Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain (180g LP)

Label: Mobile Fidelity – MFSL 1-375 – 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl –
Mastered by Kreig Wunderlich from the Original Master Tape at MFSL
AAA 100% Analogue – Numbered Limited Edition – Pressed at RTI
Half Speed Mastered on the Mobile Fidelity The Gain 2 Ultra Analog System
100 Recommended All-Analog LP Reissues Worth Owning – Michael Fremer Analogplanet.com
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Davis’ Final and Most Impressive Pairing with Arranger Gil Evans Yields Watershed Innovations.

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.

Part of our 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.

Indeed, in its three-decade-plus history, we has never been prouder to have the honor of handling efforts as important as Davis’ key recordings. It’s why the label’s engineers have taken every available measure to insert listeners into the space occupied by Davis, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, percussionist Elvin Jones, and the 18-piece orchestra. 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.

• Numbered, Limited Edition

• Half-Speed Production and Mastering by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab

• Specially Plated and Pressed on 180 grams of High Definition Vinyl

• Special Static Free – Dust Free Inner Sleeve

• Heavy Duty Protective Packaging

• Mastered from the Original Master Tapes