Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Barney Wilen - Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (1973 Japanese Fontana Vinyl LP)

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers avec Barney Wilen - Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 | Vinyl LP - 1973 Fontana Japanese Pressing (PAT-506, Nippon Phonogram, first Japanese pressing)

• Lee Morgan on trumpet, Bobby Timmons on piano, Jimmy Merritt on bass and Barney Wilen on tenor and soprano saxophone, the Jazz Messengers at the height of their late-1950s lineup recording the party scene music for Roger Vadim's 1959 film starring Jeanne Moreau and Gérard Philipe.
• All compositions by Duke Jordan, credited under the pseudonym "J. Marray," with Jordan himself playing piano on "Prelude In Blue (À L'Esquinade)" in place of Timmons and an Afro-Cuban percussion ensemble taking over for "No Hay Problema."
• First Japanese pressing, manufactured by Nippon Phonogram from the Jazz Attention! series.

Roger Vadim's 1959 film Les Liaisons Dangereuses used two separate jazz ensembles for its soundtrack. Thelonious Monk recorded the primary score. Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, with the French saxophonist Barney Wilen added to the regular lineup, recorded the music for the party scenes. Wilen was 22 and already well known in Paris: he'd played on Miles Davis's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud soundtrack two years earlier, at 20, and his presence bridged the American hard bop of the Messengers and the French jazz world the film inhabited. The compositions were all written by Duke Jordan but credited under the pseudonym "J. Marray" because Jordan was under contract elsewhere. Jordan later re-recorded the same material under his own name with different titles on Charlie Parker Records.

The sessions took place at Nola Studios in New York on July 28 and 29, 1959, with Marcel Romano producing. The standard Messengers lineup, Blakey on drums, Morgan on trumpet, Timmons on piano and Merritt on bass, plays on most of the tracks, with Wilen on tenor and soprano saxophone. The exception is "Prelude In Blue (À L'Esquinade)," credited to the Art Blakey et Barney Wilen Quartet, where Duke Jordan himself takes the piano chair instead of Timmons, and the music shifts from the Messengers' usual hard charge to something cooler and more reflective. "No Hay Problema" is an Afro-Cuban percussion feature under the name "Art Blakey Et Les Afrocuban Boys." "No Problem," which appears in two versions, became the most widely known piece from the sessions.

This is the first Japanese pressing (PAT-506), manufactured by Nippon Phonogram as part of the Jazz Attention! series.