Miles Davis

soundtrack jazz // hard bop // film noir

To record this soundtrack, Miles Davis stood in front of a screen, watched the movie, and played in the moment, improvising his own musical impressions of the drama on-screen. The music of this film, Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud, helped define the sound of film noir–the slow-walking bass beats and muted, slithering horn lines miming the characters’ action and emotion. Perfect tunes for relaxing, studying, or just completely zoning out. [Thx Angad]

Nostalgia and suspicion from jazz’s finest.
Miles Davis – Nuit Sur Les Champs-Elysees (take 2)
Miles Davis – Final (take 1)
buy this cd

Posted by Paul Irish on Monday, February 26th, 2007 under jazz.

9 Responses to “Miles Davis”

  1. Jared said on February 26th at 8:38 pm :

    very nice.

  2. Marco Raaphorst said on February 27th at 2:18 am :

    Miles is always cool. One thing: it’s not all improvised. Miles was working on the tunes a week before.

  3. Anonymous said on February 27th at 4:43 am :

    The Criterion Collection release of Elevator to the Gallows features a small film of Miles Davis during a recording session of the soundtrack, along with an interview with Louis Malle.

    http://criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=335

  4. Dittman said on February 27th at 10:53 am :

    Great choice! This was the first jazz CD I purchased and my wife just bought me a new copy for Valentines Day. For me, it’s the backbone laid down by Michelot and Clarke that really help everything to coalesce.

  5. Paul Irish said on February 27th at 11:18 am :

    Glad to hear it, Dittman. In fact, I’m usually not too keen on Miles’s music, but these tracks just stood out at me. So chill, so sublime.

  6. Charles said on February 27th at 1:23 pm :

    If you like the music, check out the Criterion DVD of Elevator to the Gallows. It’s wonderful, and the jazz accompanies it beautifully.

  7. LogJammin' said on February 27th at 1:27 pm :

    Wow, this is the damndest thing! I thought I was the only one who loved this record so much, but hey, here you all are. I listen to this every night as I fall asleep.

    I’m extremely new to jazz, so people have been telling me to listen to Miles’ bigger, more critically-acclaimed releases: Birth, Sketches, etc. But after feeling lukewarm on all of them, I stumbled across this little gem. Now I have a starting point for jazz.

  8. Chris said on February 27th at 2:30 pm :

    thanks for reminding me I need to replace my original cd that got nicked several years back – a fabulous album!

  9. Anonymous said on June 12th at 5:23 am :

    Good post. I found little information on the biographies of Miles Davis. Maybe someone will be interesting.

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