Miles Davis – Ascenseur Pour L’echafaud (10″ Vinyl Record)

Sam Records – SAM660213 – 140 Gram Virgin Vinyl – Double Insert with Photos
Original LP 10-inch issue: Fontana 660.213 MR

Re-mastered from the original master tapes with the echo effects.
AAA 100% Analogue – Mastered by Ray Staff at Air London
Limited Edition 1000 Copies – Pressed at Pallas
The Absolute Sound Super Disc List  TAS Harry Pearson Super LP List

Limited Edition Vinyl Pressed by Pallas in Germany and Remastered From the Original Master Tapes

Cut by Ray Staff at Air Mastering Studio in London.
10-inch – Facsimile reissue using the original cover art with OBI.
Double insert using an original photo by Gérad Landau/INA from 1957.
Each record has been visually checked to prevent defects.
In 1957, Miles Davis is in Paris for an engagement at the Club Saint-Germain and a wonderful concert at the Olympia Theatre. Once in Paris, Miles came into contact with many members of the modern existentialist cultural environment in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Près. These include the director Louis Malle who had just finished his first movie : “Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud”. Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a Jazz fan and Louis Malle’s assistant at the time, suggested asking Miles Davis to create the film’s soundtrack. A private sceening has been organized.
On December 4 1957, Miles Davis brought three French Jazzmen – Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone, René Urtreger on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass and his american compatriot Kenny Clarke on drums – to the recording studio Le Poste Parisien without having them prepare anything. Miles Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room. This recording was made at night in a most informal atmosphere.

The soundtrack was not released on it’s own in the USA but ten songs from this soundtrack were released as one side of the album “Jazz Track” which received a 1960 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Performance, Solo or Small Group.
“Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud” has become a great achievement of artistic excellence.
“There is something more satisfying and historically complete to having a superbly reproduced version of the original document and that is what Sam Records provides in its commendably completist style that includes a laminated ‘fold-over’ cover, outstanding cover photo reproduction and as a bonus, a black and whilte matte finish photo of Miles in Paris 1957 by Gérard Landau. More importantly, the mono sonics on this evocative soundtrack, where your mind can almost accurately conjure up the “noir-ish” happenings on screen (involving, among other action, an illicit love affair and a murder), are transparent and precise.” – Music = 10/11; Sound = 10/11 – Michael Fremer, AnalogPlanet.com.
Performed by a Miles Davis-fronted European band for a movie by Louis Malle (translation: “The Lift to the Scaffold”). This reissue LP, originally recorded on December 4-5, 1957, has an elegant, romantic air to it.
In the company of such French jazzmen as Pierre Michelot and tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen, this soundtrack is something of a throwback to the feel of Miles’ early ’50s Blue Note recordings with drummer Kenny Clarke.
Rarely has Miles’ open tone been more poignant, and that bittersweet quality probably owes something to Miles’ ongoing affair with the film’s leading lady, Jeanne Moreau.