Album Covers as Art, or How Jazz LPs Changed Our World
Thursday night my wife and I greatly enjoyed the reception and opening for the new exhibit, “Jazz. Covers. Politics–Album Art in an Age of Activism.” We had been invited by Elisa Pritzker, artist and art curator, who assisted Nathan Cummings Foundation and Romare Bearden Foundation staff in mounting and hanging the show. They’ve assembled over 150 album covers as examples of social activism from America’s civil rights struggle, the opposition to the Vietnam War, and the campaign to end apartheid, among many other historic milestones shown.
The musicians and albums on display constitute a veritable hall of fame of jazz recordings, including Max Roach’s “We Insist!,” the signature piece for the whole exhibit, that used for its cover a news photograph of three African-American activists sitting in at a segregated southern lunch counter, as they and the white-uniformed counterman, all eye the camera challengingly; Nina Simone’s “Emergency Ward!,” with its backdrop of war headlines from daily newspapers; and Duke Ellington’s “Liberian Suite,” with its red masks, and his “Afro-Eurasian Eclipse,” with a tableau showing dozens of faces from the human family. The artists whose work is found on these covers are equally important, from Jacob Lawrence’s painting decorating a Jelly Roll Morton LP to several Romare Bearden works, on Wynton Marsalis, Billie Holiday, and Ricky Ford covers. There’s so much more on these walls: Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew,” Paul Robeson’s “Songs of Free Men,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” and dozens more.
The spacious quarters of the Nathan Cummings offices on Tenth Avenue were ingeniously used to hang the album covers, as each time we turned a corner there was something new and splendid to see and read about, with insightful text alongside the images. In addition, a room was set aside for a listening booth where we sampled the music from the albums on display, and another room was reserved for a video about the album covers, musicians, and artists. The exhibit can be seen Monday-Friday, by appointment via email to exhibits@nathancummings.org. It will be up through August 23, so if you’re in NYC I urge you to make plans to see it. As an indication of the wealth of material on display, here are some pictures I took during our tour of the exhibit last week.
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- Exhibit brochure
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- (l. to r.) Maurine D. Knighton, C. Daniel Dawson, Dierdra Harris-Kelley, Joanne Bryant-Reid, and Brandi Stewart–from the Nathan Cummings and Romare Bearden foundations.
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- Elisa Pritzker (l.) with Maurine D. Knighton, C. Daniel Dawson, Dierdra Harris-Kelley, Joanne Bryant-Reid, Brandi Stewart, and Miles Davis–from the Nathan Cummings and Romare Bearden foundations.
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- Max Roach’s “It’s Time,” painting by the artist Prophet.
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- Duke Ellington’s “Liberian Suite.”
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- Duke Ellington’s “Afro-Bossa.”
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- Wynton Marsalis’s “Uptown Ruler,” artwork by Romare Bearden.
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- Art Ensemble of Chicago’s “Phase One”; they have many albums in the exhibit.
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- The cover for “Africa Speaks/America Answers” juxtaposes conga drums and a modern drum kit.
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- Many African-themed albums are in the exhibit.
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- Herbie Hancock’s “Sextant.”
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- Painter Mati Klarwein created the artwork for the gatefold cover of “Bitches Brew.” The album was Miles Davis’s first gold record, selling more than a half million copies.
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- Albums by Eric Dolphy, Yusef Lateef, and Cannoball Adderley.
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- Duke Ellington’s “Afro-Eurasian Eclipse.”
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- A pastoral scene with Horace Silver on his “Song for My Father.”
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- Another Romare Bearden on “Loxodonta Africana.”
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- Lester Bowie, also a member of Art Ensemble of Chicago, was born in Bartonsville, MD, remembered on this album of his with the town name on the bass drum.
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- Billie Holiday and Romare Bearden, a brilliant combo.
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- The dagger skewering the snake, a powerful image for Paul Robeson’s “Songs of Free Men.”
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- The Fisk Jubilee Singers, of the historically black Fisk University in Nashville, TN, began as an a capella chorus soon after the Civil War, in 1871.
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- The woman in the red dress on the cover of Bob Dylan’s 1964 album “Bringing it All Back Home” was Sally Grossman, wife of Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman.
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- Painting of a pool hall for “The Incomparable Jelly Roll Morton–His Rarest Recordings” is by Jacob Lawrence. I love the typography used here.
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- Another Jacob Lawrence painting was used for this Jelly Roll Morton album.
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- Kim Weston’s “This is America.”
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- Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
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- Stevie Wonder’s “Innervisions.”
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- The exhibit also includes spoken word albums, as in this Langston Hughes LP, “The Weary Blues.”
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- A Folkways album, “Anthology of Negro Poets,” edited by Arna Bontemps with readings by Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Claude McKay, and others.
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- “Negro Folklore from Texas State Prisons,” with “Work Songs, Blues, Spirituals, Preaching, Toasts”
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- “The Last Poets” was released in 1970.
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- Nina Simone’s “Emergency Ward!, released in 1972, was a message album devoted to her opposition to the Vietnam War. She covered George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” and “Isn’t It a Pity.”
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- “The Real Ambassadors” was a collaboration between Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong. It addressed the Civil Rights struggle and the Cold War.
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- The exhibit begins and ends with the cover of Max Roach’s “We Insist!” It was released in 1960 and drew its inspiration from the Emancipation Proclamation, whose 100th anniversary would be observed a few years after its release.
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