Quick, what do Andy Warhol, Peter Max and Romare Bearden all have in common? Our headline gives away the answer, of course, because, yes, all of them did the artwork for jazz album covers. Remarkably, Warhol’s jazz cover was for an Artie Shaw album, but maybe it’s not so odd given that they were both pop idols in their time. Warhol went on to do the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, but we won’t go there.
The tradition of interesting and creative jazz album covers goes all the way back to the early days of vinyl with artists, illustrators and designers like Jim Flora and Alex Steinweiss contributing unique artwork to adorn 78s and LPs in the ‘40s. Over the years, many jazz labels and its designers cultivated a particular look for their albums, whether it be Reid Miles’ cool graphics and typography for Blue Note in the ‘50s, photographer Lee Friedlander’s distinctive portraits for Atlantic in the ‘60s, the color images of Pete Turner for CTI in the ‘70s or the stark design aesthetic of Barbara Wojirsch for ECM for much of the last five decades.
The CD era that began in the late ‘80s dramatically shrunk the canvas for cover artwork but nonetheless designers persevered to create distinctive graphics for the 5” X 5” format, though the tactile aesthetic of the gatefold cover had disappeared. Now with streaming and downloads all but eliminating the need for cover graphics, we can look back and relish not only what we had, but also what we, as modern era vinyl hunters, still may find at yard sales, thrift shops and used record stores.
In picking the selections for this edition of Our Top Ten, besides only looking at albums that were originally released on vinyl, we also endeavored to choose albums that were special inside the sleeves, so that the result is an iconic image representing a timeless and important sound. These aren’t just great looking jazz albums. They’re all great jazz albums.
*****
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie
Bird & Diz (Verve)
No list of iconic album covers would be complete without one featuring the wholly original art and design of David Stone Martin. Highly influenced by the artist Ben Shahn, Martin started out in the 40s as a designer for Moses Asch’s self-named folk, blues and jazz label which released Norman Granz’s original Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings. When Granz started his own labels, he took Martin with him and thus one of the great label/artist relationships was born. Martin’s line drawings, sometimes with color added for effect, became synonymous with Verve’s catalog—from Billie Holiday to Oscar Peterson.
Sonny Rollins
Way Out West (Contemporary)
Rollins himself contends that the idea for this memorable cover of him packing heat (and a saxophone) in the desert, Western gunslinger style, was entirely his own. A fan of the Hollywood westerns and cowboy movies, Rollins wanted to use that metaphor for this ground-breaking 1957 album featuring the East Coast hotshot playing with a West Coast rhythm section of Ray Brown and Shelly Manne. Like with a lot of great covers, the title cleverly and succinctly captures the album’s concept and sound. The cover photo is by another legend, West Coast photographer William Claxton, perhaps best known for his iconic images of a dashing young Chet Baker.
Ornette Coleman
Change of the Century (Atlantic)
If there could be a formula to a great album cover, it would start with a great image, whether an illustration or a photo. Many of the world’s greatest photographers have contributed to record covers, often as one-shot deals. In the case of Lee Friedlander and Atlantic Records, the photographer and label worked together to create an image for Black music that still resonates today. Check out the Atlantic albums by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Les McCann and other great jazz, blues and soul artists to see the visual magic—the white backdrop with gritty color images worthy of the National Portrait Gallery. Also in that formula should be a groundbreaking album by an innovative and influential artist. This album by Ornette was not his only recording in that category, but like many from that era with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, it did create quite the stir in the jazz world. What’s amazing is that this provocative recording from 1959 sounds utterly fresh and modern today.
Eric Dolphy
Out to Lunch (Blue Note)
Reid Miles is likely the most influential album cover designer of the 20th century, at least within the jazz world. Aided by a seemingly endless supply of great black-and-white photographs of the artists at work in the studio, all shot by Francis Wolff, Miles used simple but sophisticated typography to create a style that has been imitated not only by numerous labels but also designers of every stripe ever since. There are so many striking Blue Note albums that would qualify for a Jazz Album Cover Hall of Fame, that we could devote a whole other Top Ten just for them. (Maybe we will.) In the meantime, dig this cover with the photo and design by Miles and enjoy the visionary yet timeless music of saxophonist/flutist Dolphy.
John Coltrane
Ascension (Impulse)
The late photographer Chuck Stewart (often credited as Charles Stewart) had a unique bond with the introspective and reflective Coltrane. Although Stewart shot the cover photos for many of the saxophonist’s albums on both Atlantic and Impulse, perhaps no other record cover more aptly demonstrates their unique intimacy and trust. This downright iconic image of Coltrane sitting with his saxophone in his lap beautifully and simply captures his focus and search for higher forms of expression. On Ascension, Trane and his longtime bandmates McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones are joined by a powerful horn section featuring Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, John Tchicai and Dewey Johnson, who combine to take the music to new cosmic heights, subtly inferred by the cover’s elevated type.
Thelonious Monk
Underground (Columbia)
Unlike Blue Note, Atlantic, CTI and Impulse, Columbia often preferred to adapt the look of the cover to the artist, the music and the time. This memorable cover was indeed like nothing else on the label, though perhaps it could have been seen as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the kitschy concept covers of the 50s and early 60s. Portraying the iconoclast Monk in extreme detail as a revolutionary we assume with the French underground was a clever move by designer John Berg who won numerous Grammies for his design for the label, including for this one.
Miles Davis
Bitches Brew (Columbia)
In the same way that the album’s over-the-top artwork by Mati Klarwein broke a long line of Miles Davis covers that featured photos of his charismatic image, so too did the music therein reinvent the trumpeter, as well as hundreds of jazz musicians since. Klarwein, influenced by Ernst Fuchs and drawn to the psychedelic nexis of surrealism and pop culture in the ‘60s, also did Santana’s Abraxas cover during that same time. Can you dig it? One of several of Miles’ seminal albums, Bitches Brew has assumed nearly mythic status in the jazz world and well beyond. Dylan went electric at Newport in 1965 and Miles went electric with Bitches Brew in 1969. American music would never be the same.
George Benson
Body Talk (CTI)
Like many great jazz record labels, Creed Taylor’s short-lived but very influential (and successful) CTI Records had both a sound and a look. The photographer Pete Turner provided the lion’s share of those vivid and nearly electric color images that also utilized the gatefold album format to expand the usual 12” X 12” square canvas. This seminal record by guitarist Benson features a cover image by Turner that honestly has no obvious connection to the title or the sound. How cool is that? The album, which features arrangements by Pee Wee Ellis and sidemen such as Harold Mabern, Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette and a 19-year-old guitarist named Earl Klugh, pretty much typifies the funky and plugged-in sound of CTI in the ‘70s.
Pat Metheny
Bright Size Life (ECM)
When Manfred Eicher’s label emerged on the international jazz scene in in the early ‘70s, it quickly developed a reputation for crystalline recordings and austere album covers. The latter featured an often abstract and arty photograph with hand-drawn typography. The albums looked like mini pieces of art. The ECM look was so influential that the folks at William Ackerman’s Windham Hill clearly co-opted the approach for its instrumental and new age recordings. All’s fair in the record business, I suppose, at least as long as there is a record business. Given ECM’s very deep catalog and consistent design approach, it’s nearly impossible to pick one album cover as representative of the label and its influential look. So let’s go with this one featuring the precocious debut of the guitarist accompanied by Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses. The arty cover photo is by Rainer Kiedrowski.
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Nice Guys (ECM)
This cover design treatment is notable as much because it goes against type for both the label and the artists. In nearly every other Art Ensemble of Chicago album cover, the group is pictured in all their colorful finery—from the African tribal garb to the face painting and even to the lab coat of Lester Bowie. Wojirsch elected to show the band in black-and-white in an everyday setting at an outdoor European café. Photographed by Isio Saba, the fiery jazz revolutionaries indeed seem like four “nice guys” enjoying some coffee between takes in the studio. We still can see the ECM design aesthetic in the layout and typography but this is a decidedly more urban visage than the usual pastoral landscapes of so many of the label’s albums. And, yes, this is a special recording—Great Black Music indeed—featuring the innovative band in top form, heard with the sonic clarity typical of a Manfred Eicher production.
*****
There are several excellent books featuring jazz album covers, as well as the artists and stories behind them, including:
Jazz Covers by Joquaim Paulo (Taschen)
Color of Jazz: The Album Covers of Photographer Pete Turner (Universe)
ECM: Sleeves of Desire: A Cover Story
The Cover Art of Blue Note Records: The Collection by Graham Marsh & Glyn Callingham (Collins & Brown)
Coast to Coast Album Covers: Classic Record Art From New York to LA by Graham Marsh & Glyn Callingham (Collins & Brown)
1000 Record Covers by Michael Ochs (Taschen)
In the Groove: Vintage Record Graphics by Eric Kohler (Chronicle Books)
The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora by Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon (Fantagraphics Books)
This article was originally published on jazztimes.com.
