You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Top 7 Jazz Album Covers - #72

Episode Date: December 4, 2018

Today on You'll Hear It, join Adam and Peter as they paint a scene of their top 7 jazz album covers. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? Do you like covers? I do, man. When I get cold in the winter's night, I like to really bundle up with covers. Is that what we're talking about? Yep, exactly. Great.

I'm Adam Mattis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you from a frigid St. Louis, Missouri this morning. Yeah, it's not that cold. It's actually not that bad. It's like 43.

Thank you, Al Gore. And what are we talking about today? Album covers. This was a question. an internal request and question from the open studio staff. Ah, yes, from the lovely Dan Martin. About, yeah, he's very into design and album covers and all things jazz historical.

And the request was that we talk about our seven favorite jazz album covers of all time. Of all time. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And so we had a little trouble limiting it to just seven. So we may go over a little bit. Well, this is the problem.

Yeah, man, if there's one thing that jazz has, probably as much or more than any other genre, it's amazing album art. I mean, there's really, the history of the music is just chock full of incredibly beautiful and interesting looking covers. I mean... Iconic, I think we could say? Certainly iconic. Yeah, I mean, all album art from all genres can be its own thing, but there's something

about the jazz album art. There's some really interesting techniques used by different record labels at different times, and it's very, very cool. Well, and I think it's topical now, too, with the documentary, with the Blue Note documentary that you would tell me about, I still haven't seen.

Well, I guess it just came out, where they talk a lot about how the design elements went into the creation of that, how that was a big part, obviously, along with the music, and how the music was produced and directed and presented,

how the album artwork was integral to that from the beginning. Yeah, if you don't know, all of the classic Blue Note Al Mart work that we think of was done by, they were usually portraits done by Francis Wolfe, who's one of the co-owners of Blue Note during the sessions. So all of those shots that you see close-ups

were done during the sessions, and then they had a designer. Is that Reed Miles? Read Miles, thank you very much. I just remember seeing his name always on the back. Always on the back, yeah. He would come in and usually crop Francis Wolf's photo and then add that beautiful typography that would became, you know,

possibly sometimes to the chagrin of Mr. Wolf? Mr. Wolf would not be happy with this cropping. But, you know, obviously it worked, man. Because think about those Blue Note album covers, too. Like, you can tell it's a Blue Note album, and they don't all look the same. I mean, there are some tropes that go along with it, but he got a different feel for everything.

And then really got more and more into the typography of things until we get to some of the ones on our list today that are very type-centric. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's kick it off. I'm going to kick it off today with one of my favorites. Someday My Prince Will Come, Miles Davis, just a beautiful portrait of Miles's wife at the time, Francis.

And there's something about the portrait and the music that just goes along. I don't know what it is, but it all fits in it. It's all so beautiful. And it just, it really tells you everything you need to know about what's going to happen. I think that is a really successful album cover that does that, that sets you up for the vibe. that the artist wants to throw at you, even before you hear a note, you're ready for that vibe.

Absolutely. And I think, and I was just pulling up to look at it again because, I mean, I remember having this LP and listening to this for the first time. Of course, not when it came out, but, you know, it's that Columbia,

they really had their own look. Of course, Blueno, we always think about it. Yeah, Columbia had a great look, though. Columbia had a great look with their font stuff. But I was trying to remember if there was, there is a little bit of Miles. There's that silhouette,

kind of, you know, pink silhouette of him over there in the corner playing the trumpet. Yeah. mistake, like the way he stood and everything. And then the photograph is very much like Columbia from that period with a lot of their albums, their pop albums and stuff with like this very, and I'm going way above my pay grade and saying technicolor. I don't know.

Would you apply that to this kind of like color? Very, very. It almost looks painted. Yeah. Like the color looks like it's a paint color. But, you know, of course, photograph. Yeah, it's a photograph. But it's very accurate, but it's certainly from that period.

And I just remember like holding the album and looking at it. and listening to it and the liner notes on the back. Just great design. And then just like the proportions on it too are, you know, how the woman is positioned there, how it's not like right in the middle. It's a little bit off center. And then, you know, the Columbia logo and great stuff.

Yeah, it's such a great album cover, man. Yeah. I'm looking at it now. It's just. I'm wondering on any of these albums, though, are we going to do any that are great album covers, but horrible albums? Because I don't think so.

So like how much of this is a tag? I mean, I already look at the list and I see we didn't do that. So I'm wondering how much... That's a good call. Yeah, how much of this is attached to what we know about the music. It's certainly a part of it.

We could do vice versa, too. Horrible album covers great albums. Yeah, that would be easier, I think. That would be a lot easier, actually, yeah. Okay, next, I'm going to go with Out to Lunch because we mentioned this yesterday. Yeah, man. Was that in the running situation?

It was. And so this, now this is our first of what I'm sure is going to be mini blue note album covers because they're so great. But this one is a little bit different and has some of this different elements and it's got the clock and the great topography

and then, but then the photograph and then the kind of bluish, blue note sheen to the picture. And I think it's great. It's got a great sort of geometric proportion between the white space up at the top and then the stretched out font and stuff.

And then the composition of the photograph is geometric almost, even though it's just a will-be back sign from obviously like a cafe or a shop in, you know, in the 60s when this was taken. But there's like a, you know, there's a window, what do you call that, a curtain? No, it's not a curtain. It's a little shade.

A little shade. And then there's like a string with a circle end hanging down. That looks geometric next to the clock, which is, of course, geometric. This is not a random picture. Is that what you're trying to say? It's a very well-composed album cover for sure. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah.

All right. So number three, another blue note album. And an iconic one for me, this is Blue Train. John Coltrane's Blue Train. Now, you brought a photo that I've seen, but I don't associate. He's showing it to YouTube. When we first talked, I was like, are you talking about the original blue train color? Is that the original?

When I do some research, man, the only one that comes up is the one I'm thinking of, which is that classic close-up blue note cut of the cover. The cover of the train. I don't know if yours is the original cover. And then this one is kind of a little bit of a French cartoonish John Coltrane with coming out of his saxophone some tracks. It's super cool, but it's almost like the cover of, maybe this is the children's version of it.

There's no children's version, a Blue Train. And then the way Blue Train, like the topography for that with those shapes, it reminds me of like a bolorama, like the bowling alley up there on Clayton Road. No, I'm talking about the one where Train has his hand over his mouth and his other arm is behind his head. And the blue sheen. During the session and he's obviously thinking about something. And it's just so beautiful.

And again, whenever I see this, I hear those first notes. You know what I mean? And I don't know, like you said, if that's a Pavlovian from loving the album so much. But it sets up the mood of the record perfectly. Yeah. And I mean, and then we just both discovered something. And I'm just looking at this. It says it's Jim Flora, this alternate design covers by Jim Flores.

I don't know what that's about. But we both realize, as much as we've listened, this record and looked at it, Blue Train, I always thought it was Blue, T-R-A-N-E, like Coal Train, but it's in fact Blue Train, like a-Ch-T-U-T-T-U-T-Train, yeah. So what do you know about that? Yeah. Okay. Next, we're going to go with Mode for Joe.

Awesome. Still on Blue Note. And this kind of, you know, it's just three pictures of Joe Henderson. Super cool. You know, kind of catching them in, in studio, I'm sure, and different kind of looks. But similar. And this was definitely some of those crop. What we were talking about before

with the photos that were cropped, they started out bigger. I think there was even some other people in them, but it was cropped and then put together as that kind of a... What a cool... Can I say MFER on our podcast? You can do it.

That guy looks amazing. The progression of photos is he takes a drag off a cigarette and it just looks so awesome, man. And classic blue note styling. It's great. Yeah, and then this is getting into that, you know, black backdrop,

which they love to do, It was just kind of like almost like a black box theater, you know, where there's the audience or the listener or the microphone or whatever. And I think that there's a little bit of smoke in the last one, the puff coming out. And then you're getting the shapes. I mean, they always had this great advantage of the Bluna logo with that sideways oval kind of situation. Is that an oval? Yeah, kind of the logo shape, being able to play off that with the color, just the white, the red, and the black. And incredible.

Yeah, man. What's with all these, they always have like different shades of different colorings and things. versions with those like faded out every blue note album cover you look at i have no idea it's a great questions yeah maybe some more listeners can help us on that one all right i'm going to go from my next pick i'm going to go straight in the 70s i'm going to go uh straight herbie i'm going to go to an album cover that i used to go to bed dreaming about that one day i would have this and that's herbie's thrust album if you haven't seen it go look it up now it's herbie hancock flying a spaceship that's controlled by a keyboard it's like a it's like a sphere of

ship. And so the keyboard is round in front of him. And he's in some kind of alien land and there's like a purple mountain. And he's got, you know, an afro and he looks so cool. And he's flying the spaceship with his super funky music. And I saw this when I was a teenager and before I heard the music. You know what I mean? This is one of those albums that I didn't have that I really wanted. I saw it and I was like, what is that? I want to be a part of that. I knew who I want to do drugs. I want to do psychedelics. But it was like, it was eye opening to me of like, wow. Right. Like keyboards can be cool. I know. So was it the Purple Mountain, the circular, syndrical keyboard, or the Afro that you wanted most in that picture?

All three. It was all. It still is all three, man. That's an inspiring album cover. And then it's like up in the clouds, you know. And, you know, the circular keyboard, that's something I've actually thought about a lot. Somebody actually invented one at some point. But I always thought that that was such a great idea because the way our hands and our arms are made,

actually with this parallel keyboard, it's very awkward moving up and down the instrument. I think it's one of the synth players for like Lady Gaga designed his own, you know, as you would if you were in that band. You know, you would want to, how can you be in the background? She's playing on a giant high heel. Exactly. Oh, that's good. All right, cool, thrust. So for the, are we the last one already?

Oh, no, we got a couple more. What I'm going to talk about? Oh, so this is, so to get off the, well, we're off of the blue note thing a little bit, but relaxing Miles Davis I always love this cover so this is getting into an area and when I looked it up I thought for some reason it was maybe Matisse but it's not

but it's kind of Mitease-esque and then we're getting into sort of the genre of album covers that are either great artists or modern drawings or paintings or inspired by those where there's no photographs there's no reference to the musicians or anything and there's no topography

it's just well there is some but I mean it's all about just a modern piece of art which you could present in a square situation on the LP. So many great ones. I mean, think about most of those, you know, mid-60s, Stan Gets, Zhao Giorberto, you know, like... Beautiful colors and shape.

Yeah, yeah. Even the Coltrane sound is that, like, sort of modern painting of his silhouette. Yep. Not silhouette, but his profile. Yeah. And, man, beautiful. Yeah, and I'm thinking even some...

I mean, it's kind of falling out of fashion a little bit, but like there's a Wintmarsallis record called J-Mood that was, I believe, what is the artist from, I'll remember in a minute, from North Carolina. I think he did that painting or that actual design. I'll look that up. But that's kind of the last, I'm sure there's been many since then, but that's another kind of more modern, late 80s.

That's not really modern, is it? Yeah. Well, so I'm going to throw in one for my last pick that is of this vein. And this is my favorite one from the genre of paintings. That's from Charles Mingus's, Mingus A. Oh, yeah. Painting by Esniel Fujita.

Esneal, what's up? Sneal, maybe, no. It's just so gorgeous. And, you know, Mingus A-Um starts off with that, better get it into your soul. Yeah. You know, which is just so down home and, but still super high art, you know. And I think that's what this painting says as you're listening to this music that, you know,

this sort of down home just church. feel almost can be at this level of high art and I think Mingus was a genius and and this makes me like the music even more yeah absolutely and that's Columbia right I mean yeah yeah because that's even got a little bit of that look of that all right so I'm gonna go with a bonus because I think we're officially at one two three four five six seven right can we go eight let's do it we're gonna go seven plus and that's unity by by Larry Young I love this record I've always loved it and but I love the cover and this is going straight you know

straight. Look, I've got to look it up again. Make sure I'm not confusing. No, this is the masterpiece of typography. Yeah, it's only time. I was making sure no photograph. And then it's got, you know, it's always, I never quite understood the orange balls that fell into the U, but it gives it such an interesting symmetry to the letters and like the spacing of them. So cool. And then again, how they place the logo and then the fact it's just sort of black and white, the blue note logo between the T and the Y and everybody's name there. I mean, Blue Note was great about like putting all the sidemen name, like, right there with the leader, like really sort of drawing into their whole thing about it being about the music. It's so helpful now that we're doing streaming too because you could actually see who's on the record on

like Spotify without having to look anybody up. Exactly. Yeah. Cool. Cool. All right. Well, should we do a little recap? Let's do a little recap. Okay. So we've got, we started with Sunday. My principal come. Columbia Records, Miles Davis. Then we moved on to Out to Lunch, Blue Note by Eric Dolfi. Blue Train. We even talked a little bit. That's John Coltrane, of course. Blue, Blue, Note, we talked about that alternate cover that we're looking for a little more info on. The Child's cover, we'll call it. Mode for Joe, Blue Note. Herbie Hancock thrust up in the purple clouds.

Relaxing, Miles Davis. That's prestige, I believe. Cool. Yeah. Charles Mingus Aum, by Charles Mingus, Columbia, and Larry Young's Unity on Blue Note. Love it. Good. Well, if you have any of your favorites, we're kind of starting a new thing.

you know, a way for people to kind of converse and share. Oh, really? Yes. Oh, yes. I thought you'd never ask. Oh, you didn't ask. I didn't ask. No, but we thought it would be fun to kind of have a central place. I know a bunch of you have tweeted us and hit us up on IG, Instagram, which is great. But if you want to comment on today's episode, what we thought would be nice is if you go to our YouTube and all these episodes. Did you even know this at them? I don't know if you knew this. Every episode we do here is on YouTube. That's what those cameras are here for.

I was aware. Oh, you were aware. Okay. I didn't know if you knew because we hadn't talked about that. No, I started showering before we record these now. Oh, that's good. Good for everybody. That's good. But yeah, you can go, even if you're listening on the podcast, which many of most, if not many of you are, continue to do that.

But if you want to comment on today's episode, just go to YouTube.com slash open studio network, I believe. And you thought I would have. You just search. You'll hear it on YouTube too and find it right away. Exactly. Exactly. But you can go to this episode and put a little comment, and we're going to be in there checking, interacting, hopefully love to get your feedback on album covers in general and all things you'll hear it love it well

until next time you'll hear it