MILES DAVIS — Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud (OST) (review)

MILES DAVIS — Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud (OST) album cover

Album · 1958 · Jazz Related Soundtracks

4/5 · 2025-01-24
js

This review is based on the original vinyl LP version of the soundtrack to the French film L' Ascenseur Pour I' Echafaud, featuring a French jazz trio augmented by Miles and US drummer Kenny Clarke. The understated jazz atmospheres on this soundtrack tell a lot about where jazz will be heading in the next five decades. This film music marks the first time that Miles will depart from playing jazz per se and instead finds him using the style as something to objectively manipulate and shape into something more original and personal. In formulating the music for this film, Miles eschewed actual songs and instead wrote bare riffs and repeating chord sequences for him to solo over and build atmosphere.

Not all is pure jazz here as some of the repeating motifs recall Satie and Ravel, as well as almost Indian style drones. Miles' playing over these drones and stark chord sequences is amplified with reverb and given that classic film noir 'jazz man in the back alley' sound that is almost humorous in it's cliché. Likewise the chord changes that Miles uses for the jazz sequences are classic cliché jazz sounds taken from a Disney film with beatnik characters, it's Miles tongue-in-cheek way of cleverly delivering the classic jazz goods that non-jazz fans want from a soundtrack..

This is an excellent album, timeless and beautifully retro like a classic noir film and in many ways, it marks the beginning of a world of innovations that will eventually blossom into cool jazz, fusion, acid jazz, trip-hop and nu jazz.

2 months ago
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