There’s a small blue-tinted picture of Gordon neatly boxed in a rectangular framework that is simple but tremendously effective. Never using many hues, Reid Miles often exploited the contrast between black and white in his designs, but here he uses orange and blue to add drama and emphasis to one of the best Blue Note album covers – and one of the first that many Blue Note fans think of.
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Listen to the Blue Note: The Finest In Jazz Since 1939 playlist right now.
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What can’t be disputed, however, is the superlative quality of Miles’ and Wolff’s work, which helped the humble album cover to transcend its functionality and be considered a work of art in its own right. If you disagree with some of the choices, you can use the comments section to tell us your contenders for the best Blue Note album covers. Ultimately, it all comes down to personal taste, and the following 20 artworks (not listed in order of merit) don’t represent a definitive list but rather reflect a subjective appraisal of their worth. Given how many wonderful artworks Miles produced in the 50s and 60s, choosing just 20 of the best Blue Note album covers is a difficult task. More importantly, they helped to change the way that jazz was marketed and presented, and, crucially, also altered how African-American musicians were perceived. Miles’ designs, however, gave Blue Note’s covers an avant-garde edge that made them stand out in the record-store racks. Wolff was apparently dismayed at this, feeling that his work was being violated by the young designer.
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During his 11 years with Blue Note he produced an array of different designs that were frequently characterised by a striking juxtaposition of bold typography – often including exclamation marks – with tinted photographs that were sometimes cropped in an extreme way. While Blue Note’s co-founder Francis Wolff provided the photographs of the label’s musicians, it was Reid Miles, who joined the company in 1955, who came up with the eye-grabbing designs that now cause debate among fans over the best Blue Note album covers. In its dedication to excellence in every aspect of record-making, the label’s packaging – consisting of an enticing front cover picture and obligatory sleevenotes on the back – undoubtedly matched the high quality of its music. When it came to jazz album covers, Blue Note was unequivocally the market leader in the 50s and 60s.