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


Teasing the Korean

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56 minutes ago, JSngry said:

That stuff still has traction on some circles too.

I dig the Mizell Bros' productions from that era. 

And totally agree that Shorter's Etc. cover from the LT series is a classic and should've been the only cover it ever had. Perfect. Some of the others definitely work as well, and indeed better than the follow up edits. 

Also, I thought these LT series covers were more under the influence of ECM rather than CTI in that they used a rather abstract photo that hinted/suggested a connection to the title and/or music contained and rarely if ever used shots of people. I guess maybe the cropping/border used on the LT series evoked some of the style of those earlier CTIs like Wave or some of the Wes Montgomery albums...? Using hind sight on this, it seems to me that those LT series covers help tell the story about the era they were released in a little better than the revisions, which do seem to muddy the BN story esp if like me one is coming to jazz at a much later time. I think maybe the only revised cover I like is Solid, but that's because it's a badass shot of Grant Green...but then the LT cover is good too. 

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3 hours ago, JSngry said:

I might be wrong on this, but I'm wanting to say that the LT series outlived Horace Silver? Pretty sure that the last LTs came to market after Horace's last releases,

Correct.  The last "new" title was the Horace Silver Music of the Spheres thing, LT-1033 in late 1980.  The LT reissues went as late as Joe Pass - Joy Spring, LT-1103 in 1981.

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21 hours ago, Dub Modal said:

Also, I thought these LT series covers were more under the influence of ECM rather than CTI in that they used a rather abstract photo that hinted/suggested a connection to the title and/or music contained and rarely if ever used shots of people. 

They look quite a bit like the early CTI albums when CTI was distributed by A&M.

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6 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

They look quite a bit like the early CTI albums when CTI was distributed by A&M.

Please post one full photo of each label"s jacket side by side in such a way that demonstrates this statement.

Please put them up side by side in such a way that if I'm thumbing through the shelves that I'm going to have to stop for a second to figure out which is which.

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
16 hours ago, T.D. said:

BTW, I just noticed that Dusty Groove is showing October 20 release for a bunch of Japanese Blue Note "Classic" CDs with the LT cover art. Also the Horace "Silver 'N" titles. $13.99 each.

And there's another batch coming in November.   See CDJapan site.

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I'm going to have to count it now, but I think that if we do the whole run from '39 to '80 then things that weren't issued within 3 years account for roughly 30% of material recorded, including the handful that have never been released.  Including many of the best things they ever did: Shorter's Etc.; Mobley's Thinking of Home; Lonnie Smith at the Club Mozambique; 3/4 of the Tina Brooks, and so on.  The label's reputation would be much smaller if those 100 or so albums had never come out, and that easily could've happened.

And the ones that were assigned catalog numbers at the time but then weren't issued with those numbers at the time, those are the choicest of the lot - limbo jazz, like Blue John which was talked about as if it had been released but hadn't been.

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15 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

I'm going to have to count it now, but I think that if we do the whole run from '39 to '80 then things that weren't issued within 3 years account for roughly 30% of material recorded, including the handful that have never been released.  Including many of the best things they ever did: Shorter's Etc.; Mobley's Thinking of Home; Lonnie Smith at the Club Mozambique; 3/4 of the Tina Brooks, and so on.  The label's reputation would be much smaller if those 100 or so albums had never come out, and that easily could've happened.

And the ones that were assigned catalog numbers at the time but then weren't issued with those numbers at the time, those are the choicest of the lot - limbo jazz, like Blue John which was talked about as if it had been released but hadn't been.

Jackie McLean "Jacknife" and "High Frequency", Lee Morgan "infinity", and the Elvin Jones with Lee Morgan are favorites of mine

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On 8/14/2021 at 7:47 PM, Chuck Nessa said:

As one who purchased the "Rainbow" releases as they were released, they are the "real" covers for me.

Well said, and can’t be argued with from the veracity standpoint. They are real.

This isn’t the first time this LT Series cover topic has been raised. I remember it being  talked about on the Blue Note Bord twenty years back. I have to admit that I didn’t like them at first, but I changed my mind long enough ago, and now, whenever I see these Rainbow cover BNs , I try to buy them, if they are priced in the realm of reason. I dig the esthetic, I like the photographs, and the reasoning of the designer who selected them. The soon after King covers were not done with overt Reid Miles overtones; it’s like whoever the Japanese designers were , they didn’t bother trying too hard, and just enough to make them look Blue Note-ish. They were careful not to come out like frauds, I guess. Why the Japanese didn’t hire Miles to design the covers?! He was still an active professional in the 1980s. UA could’ve hired him to design the covers for the LT series to start with…
I find the later BN cd covers by Patrick Roques to be ghastly attempts at emulating Reid Miles’s work. They are quite poor, , not all, but most of them. Just my opinion, of course. 

I’m wondering how much of an input did Lyon and Wolff have on the cover designs, Aside from Wolff providing session photographs, if those were to be used on the covers. Who came up with the album titles, by the way? Where are the original mock-ups, the “alternate takes”, studies? Trashed? If they do survive, it would be an amazing traveling exhibit, set to the music of the records they belonged to, perhaps coupled with live performances. Even if Miles said that he didn’t listen to the records when designing covers for them, they are inseparable. Like these LT covers are inseparable from their music to me.

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Overall, I think Patrick Roques did some great work for Blue Note. There were a few that I wasn't in love with but some, like Bobby Hutcherson's "The Kicker" & "Patterns" as well as Jackie McLean's "Vertigo" were really well done. My only complaint about "Vertigo" is that he basically copied that design for McLean's "Jackknife" for some reason.

I wasn't a fan on some of them where he tried some unusual color combos like Lou Donaldson's "The Scorpion - Live at the Cadillac Club" or Dizzy Reece's "Comin' On", where he used gray as a primary color which washed the whole thing out.

One of my favorite Roques covers was "A Slice Of The Top".

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Edited by bresna
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On 6/24/2022 at 7:07 AM, Rabshakeh said:

Are there any good books (or even documentaries) that cover the "non classic" Blue Note eras.

I'm flipping through the book Uncompromising Expressions (which, granted, is more of a coffeetable book than a serious history), but the years 1968-1983 are covered in just 15 pages! Out of a 400 page book! (And most of that is spent bashing the albums or damning them with faint praise.) The LT series is given one sentence. I would also like to hear more about this era.

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8 hours ago, funkytonk said:

I'm flipping through the book Uncompromising Expressions (which, granted, is more of a coffeetable book than a serious history), but the years 1968-1983 are covered in just 15 pages! Out of a 400 page book! (And most of that is spent bashing the albums or damning them with faint praise.) The LT series is given one sentence. I would also like to hear more about this era.

Some of the greatest work on the label happened between 68 and 72.  They were less consistent, but the highs were very high (Tyner, Elvin, Hutch, Patton, Lee Morgan, etc.)

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17 hours ago, felser said:

Some of the greatest work on the label happened between 68 and 72.  They were less consistent, but the highs were very high (Tyner, Elvin, Hutch, Patton, Lee Morgan, etc.)

Certainly, very good work was still being done. Including but not limited to all you mentioned. Ironically, it was the quality of the groovy side of things that fell off.  and even there good things were done. But less consistent, and less distinctive vis a vis other labels.  Both BN and Prestige made groove dates with Leo/Idris.  Son of Sidewinder was pretty much a Blue Note thing.  And there was less of playing on others' dates and graduating from sideman to leader.  As far as I'm concerned, Higgins doing no BN dates after '68 was a huge loss.

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2 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Certainly, very good work was still being done. Including but not limited to all you mentioned. Ironically, it was the quality of the groovy side of things that fell off.  and even there good things were done. But less consistent, and less distinctive vis a vis other labels.  Both BN and Prestige made groove dates with Leo/Idris.  Son of Sidewinder was pretty much a Blue Note thing.  And there was less of playing on others' dates and graduating from sideman to leader.  As far as I'm concerned, Higgins doing no BN dates after '68 was a huge loss.

Agreed on every point you make.

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