Blue Note Albums with CTI-Like Cover Art that Later Received Period-Appropriate Cover Art

[Chuck Nessa]

9 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

The aesthetes among us feel differently.  

Squishy I presume.

[Teasing the Korean]

3 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Squishy I presume.

I wouldn't refer to those covers as squishy.  I would refer to them as cheap looking and ugly.  

But not all of us are into aesthetics.

[Chuck Nessa]

7 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I wouldn't refer to those covers as squishy.  I would refer to them as cheap looking and ugly.  

But not all of us are into aesthetics.

I was referring to what you felt like.

[Teasing the Korean]

Just now, Chuck Nessa said:

I was referring to what you felt like.

I'm flattered by your carnal interests in me, but I'm happily married.  Plus, I don't go for guys with facial hair.  

[JSngry]

11 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

But not all of us are into aesthetics.

Everybody talkin bout heaven ain't goin there.

[Chuck Nessa]

13 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I'm flattered by your carnal interests in me, but I'm happily married.  Plus, I don't go for guys with facial hair.  

Ha, Ha - you thought I liked squishy.

[Teasing the Korean]

7 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Ha, Ha - you thought I liked squishy.

I think you're on the wrong website, Gramps!  

[mjzee]

 Again, not "Reid Miles" style: 

 I always thought this one was ugly: 

 No alternate cover for Landslide.

 No alternate cover for the Ike Quebec, either.

[mjzee]

 No alternate cover for Mr. Natural.

[Chuck Nessa]

 Japanese lps.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, mjzee said:

 

 

1969, Reid Miles cop NOT "period-appropriate". Frank Gauna, maybe, but...who was that, you say?

Of Love And Peace was the last Reid Miles Larry Young cover.

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

When the King Japanese vault reissues started coming out, I LOL-ed at how they absolutely flaunted how UN-"real" they were. They didn't even try, because they knew how disrepectful that would be. So they did some really weird shit, LOL weird.

 

 

2 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

This was a Japanese lp.

Other than was it actually King that did that?, my point, exactly.

[Teasing the Korean]

2 hours ago, mjzee said:

Again, not "Reid Miles" style: 

I always thought this one was ugly: 

No alternate cover for Landslide.

No alternate cover for the Ike Quebec, either.

So I it looks like many or most of these were eventually treated to period-appropriate cover art, but a few were not.  I'm glad that Blue Note, or Liberty, or EMI, or Universal eventually came to their senses and understood how this music should be packaged.  Thank you for sharing.  

[JSngry]

It's Tiki night, you've documented at least three rounds, with you and the ms. and all you can do at this hour is post this type of stupid shit?

For real man, any thread where the premise is

Blue Note Albums with CTI-Like Cover Art...

and then claims an "esthetic" interest...I know you're in Florida, but this type of Tuckery truthy bullshit is not esthetic, except in the trashiest kind of Floridian way, and even then...

BUT I'M JUST ASKING QUESTIONS...

24 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I'm glad that Blue Note, or Liberty, or EMI, or Universal eventually came to their senses and understood how this music should be packaged. 

Liberty is not a factor here. Liberty was totally gone by the time the LT records came out. EMI & Universal had yet to enter the picture. The only corporate entity in play at the time was UA.

You know, if you're going to bitch about this shit, know what the fuck it is you're talking about. Uninformed bitching is the most irritating kind, especially when it hides behind "esthetics".

[Rabshakeh]

My biggest takeaway from this thread is that 90s/00s Blue Note needed to get a better graphics team. I could do a better impression of Reid Miles cover artwork using the filters on my phone. 

My other takeaway is why on earth is there not already a “Blue Note” filter on my phone? It would give my family snaps of the kids eating fish fingers and granddad sleeping on the beach that ineffable look of mid century cool. Come on guys, it’s licensing/tie in time. Get monetising.

Finally, a question that probably answers itself: why don’t other corporate legacy rights owners take the same approach? Prestige, Contemporary, Pacific and Argo all had their unique own looks too, even if Argo’s was just ‘Men in a room play some jazz’. Obviously, they don’t have the archives, and, unlike Blue Note, there’s no brand awareness and no one gives a single solitary, but it would still be entertaining.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Rabshakeh

[Rabshakeh]

Anyway, can we all agree at least that the Verve reissue series in the 1990s was the absolute pits? Everything looks designed to be sold over the counter at Starbucks, in the 90s.

[Dan Gould]

They had two shots at Dexter's Clubhouse. Can only provide a link but this version, while weird and hideous, is the one I was happy to find on CD 30+ years ago.

https://www.discogs.com/Dexter-Gordon-Clubhouse/release/456062
 

 

 

[Chuck Nessa]

22 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

They had two shots at Dexter's Clubhouse. Can only provide a link but this version, while weird and hideous, is the one I was happy to find on CD 30+ years ago.

https://www.discogs.com/Dexter-Gordon-Clubhouse/release/456062
 

 

 

That cover was originally used on a Japanese lp..

[felser]

5 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

My biggest takeaway from this thread is that 90s/00s Blue Note needed to get a better graphics team. I could do a better impression of Reid Miles cover artwork using the filters on my phone. 

My other takeaway is why on earth is there not already a “Blue Note” filter on my phone? It would give my family snaps of the kids eating fish fingers and granddad sleeping on the beach that ineffable look of mid century cool. Come on guys, it’s licensing/tie in time. Get monetising.

Finally, a question that probably answers itself: why don’t other corporate legacy rights owners take the same approach? Prestige, Contemporary, Pacific and Argo all had their unique own looks too, even if Argo’s was just ‘Men in a room play some jazz’. Obviously, they don’t have the archives, and, unlike Blue Note, there’s no brand awareness and no one gives a single solitary, but it would still be entertaining.

Prestige has a catalog that rivals Blue Note's.   But their cover art wasn't particularly attractive.  Contemporary had a nice look, which was theirs.  Riverside was pleasing and distinctive also.    

[Teasing the Korean]

5 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Finally, a question that probably answers itself: why don’t other corporate legacy rights owners take the same approach? Prestige, Contemporary, Pacific and Argo all had their unique own looks too, even if Argo’s was just ‘Men in a room play some jazz’. Obviously, they don’t have the archives, and, unlike Blue Note, there’s no brand awareness and no one gives a single solitary, but it would still be entertaining.

Did these labels - or whoever owned these labels by the late 1970s - ever produce high-profile series of unreleased gems from their catalogs?  I know that some unreleased sessions ended up as parts of the OJC group's twofer LPs of the 1970s, but they weren't marketed in the same ways as Blue Note's releases.  It seems that Blue Note/EMI, between the tan-colored twofer series and the period-inappropriate Classics/rainbow series, was actively trying to Spotlights these albums.

Agree with you about the need for a Blue Note cover LP app for my phone.

5 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Anyway, can we all agree at least that the Verve reissue series in the 1990s was the absolute pits? Everything looks designed to be sold over the counter at Starbucks, in the 90s.

Do you mean the Jazz Masters compilation series?

[Rabshakeh]

4 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Do you mean the Jazz Masters compilation series?

Anything with vibrant dancing stick men or naive cartoons.

[Larry Kart]

59 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

That cover was originally used on a Japanese lp..

 

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

It's Tiki night, you've documented at least three rounds, with you and the ms. and all you can do at this hour is post this type of stupid shit?

For real man, any thread where the premise is

Blue Note Albums with CTI-Like Cover Art...

and then claims an "esthetic" interest...I know you're in Florida, but this type of Tuckery truthy bullshit is not esthetic, except in the trashiest kind of Floridian way, and even then...

BUT I'M JUST ASKING QUESTIONS...

Liberty is not a factor here. Liberty was totally gone by the time the LT records came out. EMI & Universal had yet to enter the picture. The only corporate entity in play at the time was UA.

You know, if you're going to bitch about this shit, know what the fuck it is you're talking about. Uninformed bitching is the most irritating kind, especially when it hides behind "esthetics".

I don't understand any of this. Back in the day, like Chuck, I was just happy to buy the LPs, regardless of their covers. I even wrote liner notes for "Vertigo," even if they got mixed up in Japan.

[Teasing the Korean]

25 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

I don't understand any of this. Back in the day, like Chuck, I was just happy to buy the LPs, regardless of their covers. I even wrote liner notes for "Vertigo," even if they got mixed up in Japan.

The Bernard Herrmann score?  Which release?

Regarding the covers, you either get it or you don't.  For me, the album art is a part of the total experience, and in my case, the music is even perceived differently if I have the wrong cover art.  

When I was a kid in the 1970s and teaching myself about jazz, all those Blue Note albums in the cutout bin jumped out at me - not because I knew who the players were, but because of the artwork.  Would Out to Lunch be as good of an album with a color photo of a grilled cheese sandwich on a hospital tray?  For some, maybe, but not for me. 

In the 1990s, I was bringing home vinyl by the armload for no money.  I can't tell you how many times I bought an LP just for the cover art.  I also can't tell you how many times I would buy a trashed LP with a clean cover, knowing that I could find pristine reissue vinyl in an ugly cover.  Case in point:  Herbie Mann's African Suite on UA.  The laminated covers are usually in good shape, but the vinyl is usually trashed.  But you can find the same album, with hideous cover art, on Solid State.  Place the clean Solid State LP inside a clean UA cover, and voila.  

Also during that era of cheap LPs, I brought home lots of those Blue Note Classic LPs with the inappropriate cover art.  Like you, I was happy to have the music, but I was not getting the full Blue Note experience, and I wondered who the genius record executive was who made such a poor aesthetic choice.

So I am happy that the powers that be at EMI or Monsanto or whoever eventually reissued most of these albums with period-appropriate cover art.  I have since bought some of these on CD.  

I wish they would sell LP-size slicks of the period-appropriate cover art that we could stick on the Classic Rainbow covers.

Back to Vertigo,  I have the late'70s European Polygram pressing, which is gorgeous, with hideous cover art.  I keep hoping that I will find a cheap, beat copy of the original Mercury LP with a clean cover.

27 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Anything with vibrant dancing stick men or naive cartoons.

Well, the ones that do a good job imitating the stylized 1950s Madison Avenue take on Picasso are OK with me, but some of them miss the mark entirely.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[Mark Stryker]

Leaving aside the cover debate, a much bigger issue for me regarding the LT series is why the Japanese versions of these albums that came out on King sounded so much better than the domestic versions. On Friday, I found a mint Japanese copy of "The Soothsayer" (1979) that just destroys the LT version that I have had practically since the day it came out. If the Japanese could deliver this kind of sonic quality in the late '70s and early '80s, how come America could (or wouldn't)?. 

Carry on ...

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Mark Stryker

[Larry Kart]

14 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

The Bernard Herrmann score?  Which release?

Regarding the covers, you either get it or you don't.  For me, the album art is a part of the total experience, and in my case, the music is even perceived differently if I have the wrong cover art.  

When I was a kid in the 1970s and teaching myself about jazz, all those Blue Note albums in the cutout bin jumped out at me - not because I knew who the players were, but because of the artwork.  Would Out to Lunch be as good of an album with a color photo of a grilled cheese sandwich on a hospital tray?  For some, maybe, but not for me. 

In the 1990s, I was bringing home vinyl by the armload for no money.  I can't tell you how many times I bought an LP just for the cover art.  I also can't tell you how many times I would buy a trashed LP with a clean cover, knowing that I could find pristine reissue vinyl in an ugly cover.  Case in point:  Herbie Mann's African Suite on UA.  The laminated covers are usually in good shape, but the vinyl is usually trashed.  But you can find the same album, with hideous cover art, on Solid State.  Place the clean Solid State LP inside a clean UA cover, and voila.  

Also during that era of cheap LPs, I brought home lots of those Blue Note Classic LPs with the inappropriate cover art.  Like you, I was happy to have the music, but I was not getting the full Blue Note experience, and I wondered who the genius record executive was who made such a poor aesthetic choice.

So I am happy that the powers that be at EMI or Monsanto or whoever eventually reissued most of these albums with period-appropriate cover art.  I have since bought some of these on CD.  

I wish they would sell LP-size slicks of the period-appropriate cover art that we could stick on the Classic Rainbow covers.

Back to Vertigo,  I have the late'70s European Polygram pressing, which is gorgeous, with hideous cover art.  I keep hoping that I will find a cheap, beat copy of the original Mercury LP with a clean cover.

Well, the ones that do a good job imitating the stylized 1950s Madison Avenue take on Picasso are OK with me, but some of them miss the mark entirely.

I'm sorry I meant "Consequence, " with Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan -- a superb album.

[Teasing the Korean]

13 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

I'm sorry I meant "Consequence, " with Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan -- a superb album.

I have that one, with the wrong cover art, unfortunately, and it is indeed superb.  And the liner notes are indeed written by a guy named Larry Kart.  Any relation?

Shifting gears, it would be interesting to learn if, among jazz fans, there is any correlation between an interest in cover art and an interest in interior design. Maybe I could hire a marketing firm and write an article for an academic journal.  

Edited August 15, 2021 by Teasing the Korean