When Miles Davis was dying in September 1991, an invisible neighboring trumpet player, who this writer would frequently hear practicing graceful classical phrases, began playing homages to Davis' voice-like, blues-inflected melodies instead. It was a poignant personal tribute to a unique instrumental sound and a unique imagination that had profoundly enriched 20th-century music.
Miles Davis Centenary Celebrations
This month marks Miles Davis' centenary, and a clamor of celebrations honors a musical life that led him to be dubbed (by Duke Ellington, allegedly) the "Picasso of jazz" for the many styles he explored. A standout this month is his 1957 movie soundtrack Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud – now repackaged on vinyl and CD with restored audio, beautiful photographs, and revealing essays.
The Soundtrack's Creation
Composed by Davis from little more than a handful of chords, this music was mostly improvised straight to a screen showing budding New Wave director Louis Malle's crime thriller Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud (Lift to the Scaffold), over one long night in a Paris studio in December 1957. His fine local quartet included expat New York bebop drummer Kenny Clarke, and their harmonic openness created a spacey, ethereal soundworld (a method that within little more than a year would also color the landscape of Miles' classic Kind of Blue) for a story following two lovers who think they've committed the perfect murder of an inconvenient husband, and the mishaps, farces, ecstasies, and fears that populate the long night of their undoing.
Dreamily sensual sounds mirror misplaced hopes; there are car-chase scurries (Miles' fast-bop horn virtuosity was formidable in this period), desolately bluesy accompaniments to actor Jeanne Moreau's confused wandering in search of her partner, bar-room clamor in the trumpet/tenor-sax counterpoint between Miles and saxist Barney Wilen – but all the music stands alone, without images. A quiet slow-burn, but simmering with all of Miles Davis' timelessly extraordinary light and heat.
Other Notable Jazz Releases
Also out this week, Norwegian guitarist, composer, and singer Hedvig Mollestad's power-trio Weejuns nods to Miles Davis' 1969 Bitches Brew with Bitches Blues (Rune Grammofon). Partnered by Supersilent keyboardist Ståle Storløkken and drummer Ole Mofjell, Mollestad edges and elbows her way into raw atonalities and spacey sci-fi shimmers through the group's unique and strangely rapturous take on 1970s jazz-fusion. A very different and much-overlooked guitarist, Jeff Parker (also of indie rockers Tortoise and Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), unveils fascinating ways of emerging patiently from minimalism to captivating lyricism with his long-running quartet on Happy Today (International Anthem/Nonesuch). And Jason Miles, a former Miles Davis keyboardist from the albums TuTu, Amandla, and Music From Siesta, revisits that groove-centric era in his own personal way, highlighting Miles' admiration for Prince, and his own creative synth empathy in a like-minded band including trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxist Ada Rovatti on 100 Miles for Miles Davis (Lightyear).
