Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Miles Davis Quintet / Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers / Barney Wilen Quintet

Jazz Sur L'Ecran (Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud / Des Femmes Disparaissent / Un Témoin Dans La Ville)

c. 1959-1963 · Fontana 680.242 ML · Mono · Canada · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Miles Davis Quintet / Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers / Barney Wilen Quintet - Jazz Sur L'Ecran (Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud / Des Femmes Disparaissent / Un Témoin Dans La Ville): Front Cover

Pressing details

Label	Fontana
Catalogue number	680.242 ML
Year	c. 1959-1963
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	Canada
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop / Soundtrack
Producer	Marcel Romano (Des Femmes Disparaissent, Un Témoin Dans La Ville); N.E.F. (Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud)
Composer	Miles Davis (Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud); Art Blakey (Des Femmes Disparaissent); Barney Wilen (Un Témoin Dans La Ville)
Musicians	Miles Davis (trumpet), Barney Wilen (tenor sax), René Urtreger (piano), Pierre Michelot (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums) - Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud; Art Blakey (drums), Benny Golson (tenor sax), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Bobby Timmons (piano), Jymie Merritt (bass) - Des Femmes Disparaissent; Barney Wilen (soprano/tenor sax), Kenny Clarke (drums), Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Paul Rovère (bass), Duke Jordan (piano) - Un Témoin Dans La Ville

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  FON AA 680242 1L 380
Side B:  FON AA 680242 2L 380

Condition

Cover: NM/EX SOME SMALL WRITING
Vinyl: NM DEEP GROOVE/NM DEEP GROOVE

Variant chronology

1959 - France, first issue, Fontana 680.242 ML, blue/silver label
1960s - Canada pressing (distributed by London Records of Canada), Fontana 680.242 ML, blue/silver label, deep groove  <- this copy
c. 1980s - later European reissues on Fontana/Fontana Jazz numbers

This Pressing

Canadian pressing (Fontana 680.242 ML, mono, deep groove) - a licensed North American manufacture of the French compilation, not the original French first pressing.

The Album

Louis Malle's 1958 film noir Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud became a landmark of jazz-and-cinema collaboration when Miles Davis, in Paris in December 1957, improvised the score in a single overnight session on December 4-5 with a pickup quintet of Barney Wilen, René Urtreger, Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke, watching the film's rushes projected in the studio and reacting spontaneously without written charts. The result, spare and modal, is widely regarded as the first great jazz film score and a key stepping stone toward the modal explorations Davis would pursue on Kind of Blue the following year. This compilation, Jazz Sur L'Ecran, pairs that soundtrack with two related French New Wave-adjacent scores: Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers' music for Édouard Molinaro's Des Femmes Disparaissent (1958), featuring the classic Golson-Morgan-Timmons-Merritt Messengers lineup, and Barney Wilen's score for Molinaro's Un Témoin Dans La Ville, played by a quintet with Kenny Dorham and Duke Jordan. Together the three sessions capture a vivid transatlantic moment when touring American beboppers and hard-bop stylists collided with the French Nouvelle Vague, producing mood-driven, largely improvised jazz that shaped the sound of European crime and noir cinema. The Davis score in particular has been repeatedly cited by critics as a model of economical, atmospheric jazz composition and remains one of his most celebrated non-album works, cementing his stature as a restless innovator even outside his regular Columbia recordings of the period. Blakey's contribution is a lesser-known but well-regarded entry in the classic Jazz Messengers discography, capturing the group in transition just before Wayne Shorter's arrival reshaped the band.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Générique - 2:45
2. L'Assassinat De Carala - 2:10
3. Sur L'Autoroute - 2:15
4. Julien Dans L'Ascenseur - 2:07
5. Florence Sur Les Champs-Élysées - 2:50
6. Dîner Au Motel - 3:58
7. Évasion De Julien - 2:00
8. Visite Du Vigile - 2:06
9. Au Bar Du Petit Bac - 2:50
10. Chez Le Photographe Du Motel - 3:50

Side 2

1. Blues Pour Vava (A. Blakey) - 3:28
2. La Divorcée De Léo Fall (Arr. A. Blakey - B. Golson) - 2:09
3. Blues Pour Marcel (A. Blakey) - 4:17
4. Sur L'Antenne - 0:40
5. Blues De L'Attente - 4:11
6. Poursuite Et Métro - 2:08
7. Mélodie Pour Les Radio-Taxis - 3:47
8. La Vie N'est Qu'Une Lutte - 3:10

The Label

This copy carries the blue-and-silver Fontana "lyre" label with matrix stamped AA 680.242 1L/2L and "MADE IN CANADA" printed directly beneath the spindle hole, with deep-groove rings visible on both sides - features consistent with the Canadian manufacture of the French Fontana Jazz Sur L'Ecran compilation, pressed and distributed under license by London Records of Canada Ltd. (credited on the back cover) rather than by Philips/Fontana France. Fontana's original French pressing of this title used the same 680.242 ML catalog number and label art but was manufactured in France for the European market; the Canadian pressing shares the catalogue number and artwork but was cut and pressed locally for the North American market, indicating it postdates the initial French release rather than being a first-run copy. The deep-groove pressing and label typography place this within the early-to-mid 1960s manufacturing window typical of London/Fontana Canada jazz product before Canadian Fontana pressings moved to flat-edge labels later in the decade.

Fidelity

Mono mastering sourced from the same Fontana metalwork used for the French release; the Canadian pressing plant (likely a Compo Company or London Records of Canada facility) generally produced clean but not audiophile-grade jazz pressings in this era, and this copy is not documented as being discussed specifically on Steve Hoffman Forums. Sonically the mono cut favors the raw, atmospheric immediacy of the Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud sessions, with the Davis trumpet tone and rhythm section captured with reasonable warmth for a period European jazz soundtrack pressing. In the fidelity hierarchy for this material, the French Fontana original and the 1988 Fontana France 2-LP complete-recordings reissue (836 305-1) are generally considered sonically superior and more complete, while later reissues (CD, Music On Vinyl 180g) offer more modern but less vintage-authentic sound; this Canadian pressing occupies a mid-tier position, valued more for scarcity and originality of era than for outright audiophile sonics.

Notes

This is the Fontana 680.242 ML mono LP, manufactured and distributed in Canada (London Records of Canada per back-cover text), not the original French pressing of the same catalog number. Deep-groove rings on both label sides and the "MADE IN CANADA" rim text on the labels are the decisive evidence for the Canadian origin; matrix stamps AA 680.242 1L/2L match the catalog number with a Canadian pressing suffix rather than the French plant codes. As a secondary regional pressing of a French compilation LP, it sits below the scarcer French original in the collector hierarchy but is itself a hard-to-find item given limited Canadian jazz LP distribution of the era.

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