This is going to be a really, really short Designer Desire post; I found so little information about illustrator, Nabil Mourani, but still wanted to feature him. The LP artworks above are the only examples of his work that I have discovered. He seems to have specialised in illustrating 1970s jazz-inspired, Middle Eastern music. I love his covers so much I went off and had a listen to some of the tracks!
If any of you out there can shed some light on Mourani, I’d love to find out more.
New Yorker, Alex Steinweiss (1917-2011) is considered the father of LP artwork. Prior to the 1930s, the vast majority of records were sold in plain sleeves or record shop advertising ‘bags’. As the first art director at Colombia Records, he recalled what record covers used to be like:
The covers were brown, tan or green paper. They were not attractive, and lacked sales appeal.
They were so drab, so unattractive, I convinced the executives to let me design a few.
He went on to design album artwork for other record companies such as Decca, London, Remington and Everest.
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!!
This week’s Tuesday Huesday post is topical, bright & festive. It features artwork by Willie Lonardo for the 1973 Harry Simeone ChoraleIt’s Christmas Once Again album cover.
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