Miles Davis: Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud (soundtrack, green vinyl) [WAXTIME]

Why you'll love it

This WaxTime In Color edition is pressed on green 180g vinyl and cut with Direct Metal Mastering. Side B adds "On Green Dolphin Street," "Fran-Dance" and "Stella by Starlight" from his May 1958 New York session.

This edition

• Green vinyl
• 180g vinyl
• Direct Metal Mastering
• Bonus tracks
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Miles Davis was booked into the Club Saint-Germain in Paris in late 1957 when Louis Malle's assistant, a jazz fan named Jean-Paul Rappeneau, introduced the two of them. After a private screening Davis agreed to score Malle's new thriller, and on December 4 and 5 he walked into Le Poste Parisien studio with four musicians who hadn't been told anything in advance.

Davis gave them a few simple chord sequences he'd sketched in his hotel room, and they improvised to the film as it played on a loop in front of them. The result is pure late-night atmosphere: the muted trumpet of "Générique," the noir tension of "L'Assassinat de Carala" and "Sur L'Autoroute," and the moody drift of "Florence Sur Les Champs Élysées." "Fran-Dance" on side B is dedicated to his wife, dancer Frances Taylor.

In the US the soundtrack became one side of Jazz Track, which earned a Grammy nomination in 1960. Scoring an entire film by making it up on the spot in two nights is a fine way to make sure you're back at the club in time for the late set.

Also at Kops: more Miles Davis on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On WaxTime In Color (cat# 950632), a reissue of the 1958 soundtrack.