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 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,985 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes!, December 9, 2004

By 

Jason Malikow (Chicago, IL, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold): Original Soundtrack (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.

33 of 33 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 (Coffs Harbour, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold): Original Soundtrack (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.

18 of 18 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 "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold): Original Soundtrack (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.