Om man er fan av StonesThrow, har hørt mye Madlib eller rett og slett digger funky Jazz, har man garantert hørt om Blue Note Records.

Via (nok engang) Iso50, og videre inn på Vintage Vanguard kom jeg inn på et glimrende arkiv med gamle Blue Note vinyl covere. Den gode gamle vinylen, med et designutrykk som med en gang setter deg inn i en spesiell tidsperiode. (Er tidløst design virkelig noe å strebe etter?) Både forsidene og baksidene er gjennomarbeidet og det hele blir en herlig sammensurium av gode vibber.

“In 1956, Blue Note employed Reid Miles, an artist who worked for Esquire magazine. The cover art produced by Miles, often featuring Wolff’s photographs of musicians in the studio, was as influential in the world of graphic design as the music within would be in the world of jazz.Under Miles, Blue Note was known for their striking and unusual album cover designs. Miles’ graphical design was distinguished by its tinted black and white photographs, creative use of sans-serif typefaces, and restricted color palette (often black and white with a single color), and frequent use of solid rectangular bands of color or white.

Though Miles’ work is closely associated with Blue Note, and has earned iconic status and frequent homage, Miles was only a casual jazz fan, according to Richard Cook; Blue Note gave him several copies of each of the many dozens of albums he designed, but Miles gave most to friends or sold them to second-hand record shops.

A few mid-fifties album covers featured drawings by an as-yet-little-known Andy Warhol.”-Wiki

Over 100 covere er vannvittig, og jeg har bare plukket ut noen highlights. Det er deilig å slippe å se Helvetica og flott å være vitne til eksperimenteringen i uttrykk fra den tiden. Enjoy