Flamenco Sketches is a modal jazz ballad composed by Miles Davis and Bill Evans in 1959, distinguished by its open-form structure built on a cycle of five scales rather than a conventional melody or chord progression. Soloists move through each mode at their own pace, signaling the transitions as they go, which gives each performance a unique shape and duration. The composition grew directly from Evans' solo piece "Peace Piece," recorded the previous year on Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Davis admired its hypnotic two-chord vamp and asked Evans to adapt it as the opening figure, which became the defining motif of the piece. The fourth mode draws on the Phrygian scale, lending the Spanish-inflected color that inspired the title. Some scholars have noted harmonic similarities to Leonard Bernstein's "Some Other Time," suggesting it as a possible influence on the modal sequence. On early pressings of Kind of Blue, the titles of "Flamenco Sketches" and "All Blues" were accidentally swapped in the liner notes, a printing error that has caused persistent confusion in discographies. The original 1959 recording, captured essentially in a single take with minimal rehearsal, features solos by Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Evans, with an alternate complete take also surviving from the session. Davis later reused the bassline in his composition "Teo." Though less commonly called at jam sessions than "So What" or "All Blues," the piece remains an important vehicle for modal improvisation and a touchstone for open-form jazz composition.
