AMEN BREAK: BLUE NOTE JAZZ COVERS

Whilst trying to get to grips with a clean style that could contain all of the elements that I wanted to I remembered the artwork and album covers of the Blue Note jazz label that I was a fan off. These exuded cool, class, style and had excellent layout and colour. All of the attributes that I wanted for my piece. I am obviously aware of that the Winstons were not a jazz band but I felt that they were in the ballpark and sought out some of these covers that I loved to see what inspiration, colours, layout, composition, use of imagery and typography I may be able to glean from them.

The examples below are all of appropriation of Blue Note album covers. It shows what a timeless quality they have but how they hark back to the "Birth of Cool" era.

One of the covers I loved was Sonny Rollins Volume 2. The strong central image of a grainy Rollins bathed in a blue light the sax very prominent in the foreground. the typography too slicing through the photo in a bold, clean, blue Helvetica type font.

Another and of a similar vein is John Coltrane's, Blue Train. Again hugely similar to the above the grainy image and the cool blue of the image radiating class. I am not so keen on the font this time but the image is hugely powerful and a contemplative Coltrane holding your gaze. I am really drawn to the blue in both of these covers and it is something that I will test out in my Amen piece.

Lee Morgan's Lee-Way is certainly different in terms of colour being a bolder but still stark cover of bright orange. The typography is clean and bold and very in your face which I love. However it is the off centre image of Lee squeezed into a rectangular leaning box that is the most exciting. He appears to be trying to escape it with his playing. I love the idea of the image of the player confined and the graphical quality of this and it is something I will experiment with in my own compositions.

Lastly Thelonious Monk's Volume 2 is again a variation on a theme of Lee-Way above. The bold red and again interesting typographic spacing. Again the typeface is bold and unmissable but the image of Monk smaller. I love the way that even though he is in a rectangle at the top the colour (red) washes through this and makes him seem bigger and integral to the overall cover almost small but spilling over into it dues to this. A technique that again i may look to exploit in my Amen piece.