"This set's centrepiece is the Miles Davis score to Louis Malle's 1958 film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, one of the trumpeter's unsung masterpieces. Playing some of his most plangent open-horn melodies, Davis led a band with bebop expatriate Kenny Clarke plus the French saxophonist Barney Wilen, pianist René Urtreger and bassist Pierre Michelot. The score is a marvel of what Malle called "elegiac counterpoint", with the group improvising off minimalist chord sketches (foreshadowing the method for Kind Of Blue). The young Wilen went on to score the 1959 fil Un Témoin dans la Ville (...); one of the set's rarities, the soundtrack breathes a Davis-like air of cool-toned lyricism ... The Jazz on Film presentation is wonderfully holistic; by the time you dig the music, read the scholarly notes and pore over the booklet's long-unseen photos and vintage posters, it can feel as if you've seen the movies in your head".
