The Thomas Crown Affair: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack [Enhanced CD]

One of the tricks in utilizing a contemporary form like jazz in scoring a film is to avoid the idiom's passing fads and clichés, which have severely dated many lesser projects. Paris-born composer Michel Legrand was classically trained in Europe and worked as an arranger and film scorer there, but also had the good fortune to work with jazz greats such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis in America.

This background helped elevate his "symphonic jazz" score to director Norman Jewison's romantic caper The Thomas Crown Affair beyond the excesses of much late '60s "contemporary" film music--with the exception of Noel Harrison's Rod McKuenesque rendering "The Windmills of Your Mind." Harrison may have gotten the Oscar for it, but Dusty Springfield made the song a classic.

One minor fault: Ryko's generous interspersing of film dialogue between the cuts of its reissues occasionally distracts from Legrand's symphonic intent, but these cuts can easily be programmed out. --Jerry McCulley