Lost Jazz Recordings From 1962 Were Sitting in a Paris Basement All Along

The movers were clearing a building near the old market halls when a wardrobe slid away from the wall a little too easily. Behind it: a bricked-up cavity, and inside the cavity, eleven tapes labelled only with dates from the spring of 1962.

Restorers spent four months baking, cleaning and digitising the reels. What emerged was a quartet in extraordinary form — two standards, one ballad nobody recognised, and a take of a well-known tune played almost entirely as a waltz.

The estate has approved a limited release. The ballad, still without a confirmed composer credit, is being released under the name found pencilled on its box: "Pour demain."

“A moving crew found eleven reel-to-reel tapes behind a fake wall. The music on them has never been released — until Friday.”