Waxtime / RE 2014
The 1958 film Ascenseur Pour L'échafaud, directed by Louis Malle, features a groundbreaking jazz soundtrack by Miles Davis. Suggested by assistant Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Davis improvised the score after a screening of the film. On December 4, 1957, he gathered four French jazz musicians—Barney Wilen, René Urtreger, Pierre Michelot, and Kenny Clarke—to record the music without prior preparation, using only simple harmonic sequences. The result is a landmark in jazz soundtracks, comparable to Duke Ellington's Anatomy of a Murder.