Miles Davis ‎– Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud

Jazz, Stage & Screen

Hard Bop, Soundtrack, Modal

1957

It was recorded at Le Poste Parisien Studio in Paris on December 4 and 5, 1957. The album features the musical cues for the 1958 Louis Malle film Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a jazz fan and Malle's assistant at the time, suggested asking Miles Davis to create the film's soundtrack - possibly inspired by the Modern Jazz Quartet's recording for Roger Vadim's Sait-on jamais (Does One Ever Know), released a few months earlier in 1957.

Davis was booked to perform at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris for November 1957. Rappeneau introduced him to Malle, and Davis agreed to record the music after attending a private screening. On December 4, he brought his four sidemen to the recording studio without having had them prepare anything. Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room, and, once the plot was explained, the band improvised without any precomposed theme, while edited loops of the musically relevant film sequences were projected in the background.

Jazz Track, an album that contains ten songs from this soundtrack, received a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group.