Description
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud is an album by jazz musician Miles Davis. 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.
It's no slight to French filmmaker Louis Malle that his first feature movie, the film-noir caper L’Ascenseur pour echafaud (titled Elevator To The Gallows in the U.S.) is today as famous for its soundtrack as it is the film itself. Malle himself called the moody soundtrack “un cadeau”—a gift—and indeed, the music Miles spontaneously recorded with a primarily French jazz group is today revered as one of the best examples of modern jazz serving as a cinematic score.
That the effort was done in such an impromptu fashion—after one screening of the film, during an overnight recording session in a Paris radio station with musicians who were not his regular band—makes it even worthier of admiration. Music does indeed travel with the musician.