Jazz Track

Jazz Track pairs two landmark but very different Miles Davis dates: the improvised score he cut in Paris on December 4-5, 1957 for Louis Malle's film noir "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" (Elevator to the Gallows), and three standards recorded in New York on May 26, 1958 with the sextet that would soon make Kind of Blue. The Paris session is jazz history's most celebrated example of pure improvisation to picture: Davis and a pickup band of French and expatriate musicians reportedly watched screened footage and played spontaneously with almost no rehearsal, producing a moody, minimalist score that became foundational to the language of jazz film scoring. The New York side captures the first studio meeting of Davis with Bill Evans alongside Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb - the only other studio recordings by that exact lineup outside of Kind of Blue - and its version of "Stella By Starlight" in particular is prized by musicians and critics as one of the finest readings of the song on record. Coming at the hinge between Davis's hard-bop Prestige years and the modal breakthroughs of 1959, the album captures him restlessly expanding his vocabulary in two very different contexts simultaneously. Columbia's decision to package a European film score alongside a domestic studio date made for an unusual, somewhat stopgap release, but it preserved both dates for American listeners at a time when the film soundtrack itself was not yet issued domestically. Critically the album has always lived somewhat in the shadow of the artist's more unified statements, but collectors and critics single out the Evans/Adderley/Coltrane trio of tracks as essential precursors to Kind of Blue, and reissues of both halves (ind the soundtrack and reissues of individual sessionsions) is are essential precursors to Kind of Blue, and reissues of both halves have beenended.