Today’s bookmarks post features Jazz Covers by Joaquim Paulo & Julius Wiedemann (Ed.) – and published by Taschen.
Justin’s a big jazz fan and has an ever-expanding record collection – particularly 50s & 60s vinyl.
This book review’s been a real treat for him.
We’ve been thinking for some time that we need to do a blog post featuring some of the fantastic album covers from this era…
…then lo & behold this wonderful book appeared!
It’s certainly a great looking package. There’s a striking outer box sleeve and the book spines contained within resemble LPs stacked on a shelf. It’s a lovely little touch – typical of Taschen”s quality and attention to detail.
Jazz Covers is divided into two volumes – first artists A-K and then L-Z.
Great names such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Mingus and Thelonious Monk (perhaps we shouldn’t start listing names because there’s always one more that has to be mentioned).
Each volume starts with interviews from legendary jazz figures – Bob Ciano (former art director at CTI), Fred Cohen (owner of the Jazz Record Centre in New York), Michael Cuscuna (producer at Blue Note Records), Rudy Van Gelder (sound engineer), Ashley Kahn (author & jazz critic) and Creed Taylor (founder of Impulse! Records).
They truly are legends within the industry and their thoughts are both fascinating & insightful – shedding light on the design process and the music itself.
Following these short interviews are page after page of the most wonderful album covers.
We took photographs of some of our favourites, but the quality’s so amazing that if we’d returned the next day we’d probably have chosen a completely different selection!
Accompanying the photographs are superb side notes – there are details about each record – artist, date, label etc. Also additional information about the musicians who played on them, producers, design influences, record industry snippets and wider social history.
We really like the use of these extensive side notes which breaks information up into manageable, reader friendly chunks – absolutely perfect for a big ‘coffee table’ book.
Volume II ends with ‘top ten lists’ where some of the worlds most influential DJs and biggest collectors spill the beans on the albums that they just couldn’t live without.
Having read their lists, there are serious concerns for our bank balance!
As you might have guessed, we couldn’t recommend this book highly enough – it’s fabulous!
Jazz enthusiasts will obviously get the most from it, but it will also appeal to lovers of design, art, typography & photography in general. Get it on your pressie list!!
As well as the Taschen website, this book is also available on Amazon.
[Many thanks to Taschen for this review copy]
