Cross-posted and slightly expanded from my teeny Substack.

In all the years (nearly six decades) of listening to, DJing, and accumulating jazz records, I’m fairly certain I’ve never encountered this unusual Miles item until I snared it a few weeks ago at an antique store in Maine.

The LP made it home safely, halfway across the continent, and I’m now listening. First side is a wholly improvised soundtrack to a French film, a noirish thriller, made with French sidemen in a Paris studio. The second side is a session recorded in New York a few months later featuring the familiar Miles Davis sextet—with Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb, . Given its release in late 1959, the record is both a precursor and a follow-up to “Kind of Blue.” Awesome; it’s blowing my mind.

In poking around a bit, it seems this particular mono LP from Columbia is a fairly rare find; some of the tracks can be found on much later compilations. But this one sounds great as it is, with minimal surface issues.