The Paolo Fresu Quintet performs a live rendition of the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s *Elevator to the Gallows*, accompanying the screening of the iconic film noir starring Jeanne Moreau. Striking a balance between fidelity to the original and creative freedom, Paolo Fresu’s quintet reinterprets the famous score that Miles Davis composed in 1957 with a French quartet, renewing the historic dialogue between jazz and cinema and enhancing the nocturnal, suspended atmospheres of a film that has gone down in the history of cinema.
Elevator to the Gallows
Paolo Fresu Quintet
90'
Original version
French with Italian subtitles
Elevator to the Gallows
Paolo Fresu Quintet
90'
Original version
French with Italian subtitles
An evening of film and music in which the Paolo Fresu Quintet pays tribute to the African-American trumpeter Miles Davis—one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time—presenting a recital that combines musical precision, narrative skill, and improvisational sensitivity. The legendary ensemble reinterprets Davis’s works through meticulous research, enriching them with new musical elements that amplify the dramatic tension and poetic dimension of the images.
At the heart of the film is a seemingly perfect crime and a Parisian night destined to turn into a labyrinth of misunderstandings, chases, and intertwined fates. As the protagonists try in vain to escape the consequences of their actions, the city becomes the setting for a story suspended between passion, fate, and disillusionment.
A muted trumpet, modal and hymnal tones, instrumental dialogues, and elegant improvisational passages accompany the cinematic narrative, blending with the images in an immersive experience that renews the dialogue between live music and cinema and fully restores the evocative power of the masterpiece by the then-debutant French director Louis Malle.
Multimedia Content
Lift to the Scaffold (1958)
Trailer
Project commissioned by
Vicenza Jazz 2026
Related events
14–15.11
Sala Teatro
Miles Davis (1926–1991)
Elevator to the Gallows
trumpet and flugelhorn
Paolo Fresu
tenor and soprano saxophones
Tino Tracanna
acoustic piano and electric piano
Roberto Cipelli
double bass
Attilio Zanchi
battery
Ettore Fioravanti