Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold): Original Soundtrack [Soundtrack]

Miles Davis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: Polygram Records
• ASIN: B000004785
• Also Available in: MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,441 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees (Take 1)

2. Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees (Take 2)

3. Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees (Take 3) (Generique)

4. Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees (Take 4) (Florence sur les Champs-Elysees)

5. Assassinat (Take 1) (Visite Du Vigile)

6. Assassinat (Take 2) (Julien Dans L'Ascenseur)

7. Assassinat (Take 3) (L'Assassinat De Carala)

8. Motel(Diner Au Motel)

9. Final (Take 1)

10. Final (Take 2)

11. Final (Take 3) (Chez Le Photographe Du Motel)

12. Ascenseur (Evasion De Julien)

13. Le Petit Bal (Take 1)

14. Le Petit Bal (Take 2) (Au Bar Du Petit Bac)

15. Sequence Voiture (Take 1)

16. Sequence Voiture (Take 2) (Sur L'Autoroute)

17. Generique

18. L'Assassinat De Carala

19. Sur L'Autoroute

20. Jullien Dans L'Ascenseur

See all 26 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Performed by a Miles Davis-fronted European band for a movie by Louis Malle, this music helped define the sound of film noir. It made viewers think the genre's films had always sounded just so, with slow-walking bass beats and muted, slithering horn lines miming the characters on the screen--and underlining their emotions. The melodies here are brief fragments, sometimes rising up only to disappear and then briefly return. This is Miles playing in the moment, improvising musical impressions as he watched the screen. And what he played managed to capture the era of postwar everywhere, while it offered Davis the freedom to test his on-the-spot compositional skills within a minimalist context. How many other beboppers who worked within the shadow of Charlie Parker could have ever recorded these little gems? --John Szwed

Product Description

Unavailable in the U.S.! Miles Davis' moody, evocative music for the Louis Malle movie (translation: The Lift To The Scaffold) comes in two different forms on this reissue. There is a chronological sketch pad of tracks which didn't appear in the original release, or appeared in altered form, and tracks 16-26, which comprise the body of the original release, complete with the odd dollop of post-production echo to italicize the film's dramatic content. Recorded on December 4-5, 1957, the music for the film has an elegant, romantic air to it. In the company of such French jazzmen as Pierre Michelot and tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen, this soundtrack is something of a throwback to the feel of Miles' early '50s Blue Note recordings with drummer Kenny Clarke. Rarely has Miles' open tone been more poignant, and that bittersweet quality probably owes something to Miles' ongoing affair with the film's leading lady, Jeanne Moreau.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Up with the very best of Miles January 19, 2004

By Ian Muldoon

Format:Audio CD

Twenty six tracks all written by Mr Davis performed by at least two other legendary musicians - Mr Pierre Michelot, bass, and Mr Kenny Clarke, drums - with sterling support by Mr Wilen on tenor and Mr Urtreger on piano with Mr Davis in an intoxicating love affair with the delicious and iconic actor Jeanne Moreau, must have brought out the best in him. A terrific album without one uninteresting musical moment, which must be included as one of the greatest sound tracks ever, and superior by far to say, Mr Davis at the Blackhawk. Brilliant.

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes! December 9, 2004

By Jason Malikow

Format:Audio CD

Recorded in one session in 1957 or '58, Miles Davis is backed by Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone, Rene Urtreger on piano, Pierre Michelot on contrabass, and Kenny Clarke on the drums, in this record (Verve 8363052, reissue 20 March 1989), which was also the soundtrack to the Louis Malle film L'Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud.

This is a great record. Not one of the heavyweights of Davis' oeuvre, but absolutely a gem in its own right. The cool, spare compositions foreground Davis' trumpet. From the plaintive wail that opens "Générique" to the relaxed wanderings of "Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées," these pieces are as expressive and as emotional as Davis' other work of the same era. Yet the album is not simply Davis-plus-a-band. Barney Wilen's tenor sax is a full and effective counterweight to Davis' trumpet. Throughout "Au Bar du Petit Bac" the two dart and weave around each other, heading in the same direction, walking the same path, but with a difference as vivid and breathtaking as that space between Picasso and Matisse. Kenny Clarke tears it up on "Diner au Motel," playing so fast and far ahead that, at times, Davis seems to be pushing hard to keep pace with his rhythm section.

There is a great deal more to be said for this album, but the one word that comes to mind whenever I listen to any of these cuts, is "Yes." Even the alternate takes are a fascinating look into Davis' thinking, not only at a particular stage of his exploration, but more immediately: after a screening of the film, at the end of a European tour, late at night after a drink. I think this album is often overlooked by less-active jazz fans, and that's a shame. It might be one of the top five cool albums ever.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Paris. 1957. Miles Davis. There's a recipe for greatness March 20, 2007

By Jesse Kornbluth TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Audio CD

In 1957, Louis Malle was 24 years. He was filthy rich. Incredibly handsome. And prodigiously talented --- he had already co-directed and shot Jacques Cousteau's Oscar-winning documentary, "The Silent World." Now he was ready to make his first feature.

He chose an overlooked noir novel about a man who kills his lover's husband, only to get trapped in the elevator while fleeing. His car gets stolen; complications multiply. Meanwhile, we --- and his lover --- wait to see if he'll get free before the police arrive.

Malle co-authored a clever, stylish script. He gave the film an ironic title: "Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud," or "Elevator to the Gallows." As the lover, he hired Jeanne Moreau, a successful but not incendiary stage actress. And as his cinematographer, he chose the young innovator, Henri Decae.

And then this first-time director got Miles Davis to improvise and record the soundtrack.

Davis was then at the pinnacle. He had revolutionized jazz once already. Now he was turning away from hard-charging bursts of sound to a cooler, modal style that would change the dominant style of American jazz once again.

What could he have possibly seen in Louis Malle?

Fun.

"I was in Paris to play as a guest soloist for a few weeks," Davis later explained. "I met Louis through Juliette Greco. He told me he had always loved my music. I agreed to write the musical score for his film because it was a great learning experience --- I had never written a music score for a film before."

Davis didn't really "write" this one, either. Oh, he said he "looked at the rushes of the film and got musical ideas to write down." But his real genius was in hiring the great American jazz drummer Kenny Clarke and three French musicians and putting them in an environment that mirrored the mood of the movie. As Davis recalled: "Since it was about a murder and was supposed to be a suspense movie, I used this old, gloomy, dark building where I had the musicians play. I thought it would give the music atmosphere, and it did."

The soundtrack was recorded in a single, champagne-fueled session as Moreau and Malle looked on. At one point, a bit of Davis's lip blew into his mouthpiece; he pressed on. There were repeated takes of certain ideas; a number of tracks on the soundtrack are variations of earlier cuts.

No matter. This is one of the greatest jazz soundtracks in film --- some say the greatest. The trumpet couldn't be more evocative: mostly slow and breathy, thoughtful and tender, lonely and okay about it. In a word: cool. The quintessence of cool.

There was much to praise about the film, It used Paris like nothing before it; Malle presaged the New Wave. The final shot was made with a cameraman in a wheelchair; it proved that filmmakers could shoot at night without massive equipment. The film made Jeanne Moreau a movie star. And it launched Louis Malle's brilliant career.

The irony of the Malle-Davis collaboration is that Malle never explored noir again --- indeed, he made it a point to direct only one movie per genre. But the ideas of composition that Davis was working out in this movie soundtrack would come to full bloom a few years later, in his classic Kind of Blue (with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly and Bill Evans).

The soundtrack, mesmerizing and evocative at the time, has become more important as the years go by. It's a thrilling artifact and a deep experience for the serious jazz fan. And if you're shallow like me --- if you like music without lyrics at dinner --- you get two CDs for the price of one. The first is about the airy beauty of the music. The second is about guests asking what they're listening to.

In this case, your friends will know who's on that trumpet. But they'll have no idea this soundtrack even exists. Which makes you fractionally as cool as Miles.