The 100 Greatest Jazz Album Covers
Posed with the question, “Who invented jazz album cover design?” Most people will instantly say, Blue Note Records, and Reid Miles in particular. But this would be a gross simplification as well as inaccurate.
What is true is that the record labels that were releasing jazz in the 1940s in 78 albums and then on 10” long playing records were at the forefront of LP design. This is for no other reason other than jazz was the hippest, coolest, and most progressive kind of music around attracting many young designers to the music, who in turn lent their undoubted talents to the genre.
When Norman Granz started his Jazz imprint at Mercury Records it was to David stone Martin that he turned for many of the designs that graced Clef, Norgran and later Verve’s records.
It was through Stone Martin’s working association with Asch Records that he met Granz, and they developed both a friendship and a close working relationship. When Granz gave him the job of looking after all the art needs of Clef Records in 1948.
Besides working freelance, Martin also found time to teach and when the sheer volume of his cover art alone is considered, his prodigious output is apparent. It has been estimated that there are around 400 Clef, Norgran and Verve albums bearing his signature. Some like the Charlie Parker series are instantly recognizable as Martin’s work, while some of his covers for Billie Holiday are less obviously his style. One cover that many would perhaps overlook as Martin’s work is Ella and Louis’s Porgy And Bess (1957).
Over at Blue Note it was another graphic designer, with a passion for jazz, who did many of the label’s early album designs, his name was Paul Bacon. When the label released it’s initial batch of LPs in the early 1950s they featured sleeves designed by a twenty-seven-year-old New Yorker, Bacon. An avid jazz fan, Bacon worked in a small local advertising agency and had got to know Lion through the Newark Hot Club. Bacon’s sleeves sometimes included one of Francis Wolff’s photographs of the artist; it helped them to stand out.
When the new twelve-inch format came along it was Reid Miles, a twenty-eight-year-old designer who had worked for Esquire magazine that came to prominence. His debut for Blue Note, as co-designer with John Hermansader, was a cover for a ten-inch album by the Hank Mobley Quartet in late 1955, but the first album to carry the sole name Reid K. Miles was far from modern – a Sidney Bechet release a few months later.
Perhaps most ironic of all, given that Blue Note album sleeves have become the benchmark against which all modern jazz covers – and those of just about any other album – are measured, Miles was not a jazz fan, but a classical-music lover. Yet perhaps it was his distance from the music that was also his strength, allowing him to approach the design unencumbered by all but the basic details – the album title, the feel of the music, and something about the session. And of course, he had Francis Wolff’s brilliant photographs.
Reid was also interested in photography and began taking his own shots when he didn’t have the right kind of image from Wolff, who was sometimes frustrated by the way Miles drastically cropped his photographs.
Miles wasn’t paid a lot, at around $50 per cover, and often designed several albums on a Saturday, when not at his full-time job. While he did almost every Blue Note cover for the next decade, when swamped with work farmed out jobs to friends, including a young Andy Warhol, then a struggling artist desperate for commissions. Warhol produced three Kenny Burrell album sleeves along with one for Johnny Griffin. In later years, Miles would design covers for Bob Dylan, Chicago, Neil Diamond, and Cheap Trick.
Yet it was also other labels like Prestige and Riverside who also produced some amazing covers, like Relaxin’ with The Miles Davis Quintet that was designed by Esmond Edmonds. Then there’s Don Martin’s amazing work on Miles Davis with Horns or Tom Hannan’s design on the Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins LP.
Other companies, including Columbia, Capitol, RCA Victor, Atlantic, United Artists and some smaller independent labels all had some amazing designs that are all represented in the list that follows.
Into the modern era and the glory days may have passed but there are still some classics as you will see from, our 100 Greatest Jazz album Covers. We’d love to hear from you, as to what are your most loved album covers within the jazz genre. We’ll produce an alternate ‘readers choice’ in the coming weeks.
So, in no particular order, what are the Greatest 100 jazz album covers?
Road Song – Wes Montgomery
Bird and Diz – Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie
Unity – Larry Young
Undercurrent – Bill Evans and Jim Hall
Tutu – Miles Davis
True Blue – Tina Brooks
Third Stream Music – The Modern Jazz Quartet
The Clown – Charles Mingus
Sunday At The Village Vanguard – Bill Evans Trio
Somethin’ Else – Cannonball Adderley
Laughing In Rhythm – Slim Galliard
The Sidewinder – Lee Morgan
2-3-4 – Shelly Manne
Django – Modern Jazz Quartet
Roy and Diz – Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie
Romantic Warrior – Return to Forever
Freedom Suite – Sonny Rollins
Relaxin’ With The Miles David Quintet – The Miles Davis Quintet
Oscar Peterson Plays Porgy & Bess – Oscar Peterson
Oscar Pettiford – Oscar Pettiford
Out of the Blue – Sonny Red
Oscar Peterson Collates – Oscar Peterson
Ornette! – Ornette Coleman
The Blues And The Abstract Truth – Oliver Nelson
Movin’ Wes – Wes Montgomery
Moondog – Moondog
Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins – Thelonious Monk/Sonny Rollins
Blue Haze – Miles Davis
Boogie Woogie At The Philharmonic – Meade Lux Lewis
Hot Five – Louis Armstrong
Liquid Love – Freddie Hubbard
Lionel Hampton Quintet – Lionel Hampton
Lester Young Trio – Lester Young
The King Cole Trio – King Cole Trio
Midnight Blue – Kenny Burrell
Matador – Kenny Dorham
Kenny Burrell – Kenny Burrell
Blue Train – John Coltrane
In ‘n Out – Joe Henderson
The Jazz Messengers At The Cafe Bohemia Volume 1 – The Jazz Messengers
Jazz At The Philharmonic – Norman Granz
Jazz At The Philharmonic Volume 2 – Norman Granz
Jazz At The Philharmonic Volume 8 – Norman Granz
It’s Time! – Jackie McLean
Miles Davis and Horns – Miles Davis
The Complete Commodore Recordings – Billy Holiday
High Priestess of Soul – Nina Simone
Herbie Nichols Trio – Herbie Nichols
Head Hunters – Herbie Hancock
No Room For Squares – Hank Mobley
Inventions & Dimensions – Herbie Hancock
Hamp and Getz – Lionel Hampton and Stan Getz
Black Radio – Robert Glasper
Patterns in Jazz – Gil Melle
West Coast Jazz – Stan Getz
Getz/Gilberto – Stan Gets, Joao Gilberto
Echoes of New Orleans – Goerge Lewis and His New Orleans Stompers
Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation – Ornette Coleman Double Quartet
Hub-Tones – Freddie Hubbard
The Astaire Story – Fred Astaire
Fancy Dancer – Bobby Humphrey
Esquire’s 1946 Award Winners Hot Jazz – Various Artists
Out To Lunch! – Eric Dolphy
Ella and Louis – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
Porgy and Bess – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
Elastic Rock – Nucleus
Anatomy of a Murder – Duke Ellington
Trompeta Toccata – Kenny Dorham
Our Man In Paris – Dexter Gordon
Go – Dexter Gordon
Time Out – The Dave Brubeck Quartet
At The Piano – Count Basie
Cool Struttin’ – Sonny Clark
The Congregation – Johnny Griffin
Come Fly With Me – Frank Sinatra
Coltrane Plays The Blues – John Coltrane
Chet Baker In Milan – Chet Baker
Charlie Parker With Strings – Charlie Parker
The Afro-Cuban Jazz Suite – Chico O’Farrill/Machito
Jazz At The Philharmonic 1949 – Charlie Parker
Unit Structures – Cecil Taylor
The Cat – Jimmy Smith
Blue Light ‘Til Dawn – Cassandra Wilson
Big Band Theory – Carla Bley
Perceptual – Brian Blade Fellowship
Black Fire – Andrew Hill
Bitches Brew – Miles Davis
Billie Holiday Sings – Billy Holiday
Jazz Classics Volume 1 – Sidney Bechet
New Movements In Be-Bop – Lionel Hampton
Moanin’ – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
A.T.’s Delight – Art Taylor
Point of Departure – Andrew Hill
Gerry Mulligan Presets A Concert In Jazz – Gerry Mulligan
The Dissection and Reconstruction of Music From The Past As Performed By The Inmates of Lalo Schifrin’s Demented Ensemble As A Tribute T oThe Memory of Maquis de Sade – Lalo Schifrin
A New Perspective – Donald Byrd
Let Freedom Ring – Jackie McLean
Monk’s Music – Thelonious Monk
Count Basie – Count Basie
Jazz Concert Volume 2 – Louis Armstrong and the All Stars
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