Pierre Michelot

Miles Davis: Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud

by Jack Kenny
May 27, 2026

A legend has grown up around the music Miles Davis created for Louis Malle's debut film Lift to the Scaffold (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud). The story goes that Davis arrived at the Paris studio having never seen the film. He watched the rushes once, then improvised as the footage rolled with his European quintet--René Urtreger on piano, Barney Wilen on tenor saxophone, Pierre Michelot on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums. The music was recorded on the night of December 4 ...

Miles Davis Quintet: In Concert At The Olympia, Paris 1957

by Ian Patterson
January 7, 2024

Another live Miles Davis recording. Well, once the studio outtakes have dried up, this is the only seam left to mine. Happily, with advances in sound technology, old radio broadcasts are increasingly being dusted down and treated to a little digital TLC. Since 1983, Fresh Sounds Records has been a leading light in reissues and archival releases (see Fresh Sound Records and the Legacy of Recorded Jazz), in addition to producing many hundreds of contemporary artists. This one from Jordi ...

Bass great Pierre Michelot dead at 77

Source: All About Jazz
July 5, 2005

PARIS (AP) - Jazz bassist Pierre Michelot, who recorded with Miles Davis and arranged music for Chet Baker, has died, a fellow musician said Monday. He was 77.

The bass player, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died in Paris on Sunday, said pianist Rene Urtreger, a member of Michelot's longtime jazz trio, HUM.

Michelot played with Davis on one of the great soundtracks of the 1950s, for Louis Malle's classic thriller Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud (Elevator to the Gallows). He recorded ...
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