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Black and white drops. What is jazz? Perhaps someone would naively answer "a musical genre," but that would be like trying to define the sky. It is impossible to confine it to a dry definition because jazz is a state of mind, a caress, a slap, immediacy, unpredictability, spontaneity, the present, a crack on the infinite, mysterious, and uncertain surfaces of the human soul... but what would be the point of continuing? I could list streams of adjectives, elaborate a thousand metaphors, but it would serve no purpose because jazz cannot be described; it must be lived.
Miles Davis lived and embodied it for decades, elevating it to such a level of beauty that it is difficult to refer to him without using words like legend. The unmistakable sound of his trumpet, molten metal, is not only a part of jazz history but of the last century. The myth's construction was significantly aided by "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud," the soundtrack of Louis Malle's film noir of the same name, belonging to the Nouvelle Vague movement. Miles recorded this music on a Parisian night between December 4 and 5, 1957, while the film's images played before his eyes. I really cannot imagine what those who were present that night must have felt, among them Boris Vian, another icon of the 20th century. But I am nonetheless convinced that this music retains all the magic of that night intact.
An enigmatic magic with every listen. Who knows what Miles must have thought seeing Jeanne Moreau's indolent stroll under the rain of a black and white Paris and her gaze lost in the void. Who knows what mysterious mechanism that scene must have triggered from his eyes, to his mind, to his mouth, to his hands, leading him, finally, to the creation of this noir and impressionistic music, which permeates the image so deeply that separating it from it seems impossible. Who knows if he was aware that this music would enchant hundreds of thousands of souls for decades. Who knows... We are not given to know, but we can live it and imagine it, perhaps at night, in the dark, while the rain knocks at our doors and the mind paints a black and white world.
Nothing else is needed, least of all words.
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