Filed Under: "music"

Our fourth Jim Flora anthology is officially available today. Our first book, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (2004), featured Flora’s known album covers. Since that book’s publication, more vintage covers have been found, as well as the artist’s rough drafts and rejected illustrations. The Mischievous Art went through two editions, but is now out of print, highly sought and available only at high prices through rare-book sellers. So we decided to compile a complete collection of Flora record…

… a Cugat conga line, to pre-order the new Flora anthology, The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora. It features all of Flora’s known album and EP covers (including back cover illustrations) from 1947 to 1961 for Columbia, RCA Victor, and their affiliated labels, along with music-themed fine art works, illustrations, and sketches. The book was completed last week and will head shortly to the printer. (Despite what it says at Amazon, the publication date…

There’s been little Florablogging in recent months. Not for lack of interest, certainly not for lack of fresh material. We could post something new every day for the next five years and still retain a cache of surprises. A few years ago we discovered a sketch album that contained 225 (artist-clipped and glued-in) pencil and ink drawings from the 1940s, very few of which were subsequently published or posted. That album alone could carry us…

Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke (1903-1931) Today is the 109th birthday of Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke, an American “hot jazz” legend who’s been dead for 81 of those years. Bix was an alcoholic who never took a legal drink in his life. He was underage when Prohibition commenced in 1919, and died before it was repealed in 1933. Jim Flora, who loved jazz, rendered a caricature of this revered cornetist on a 1947 Columbia Records 4-disc set. Last…

Today we launch a new limited edition fine art print of a classic mid-century Flora album cover. Bix and Tram was one of the artist’s earliest record sleeve illustrations, issued by Columbia in 1947 on a 78 rpm 4-disc set. The cover features outlandish caricatures of two legendary bandmates from the 1920s “hot jazz” scene: cornetist Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke and saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer. Despite what appear to be mutant facial and cranial features, in fact…

Those perennial favorite Jim Flora calendars are in stock for 2012. You’ve got your bug-eyed saxophonist, an Aren’t-We-Having-Fun? moon, and a manic drummer to guide you through the coming Leap Year. These are hand-printed mini-calendars measuring 10″ x 4-1/2″.  If you prefer something of greater magnitude in a maritime motif, our Sheffield Island poster-sized calendar should suit your tastes:

Jim Flora Art has launched a new limited edition fine art print: INSIDE SAUTER-FINEGAN, a 1954 RCA Victor LP that features one of Flora’s best-known cover illustrations. Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan were famous for their orchestral mayhem. While Flora’s mischievous cover figures didn’t physically resemble Eddie or Bill, his caricatures reflected their inventive approach to redefining big band jazz in the 1950s. The print image is larger (15-1/2″ square) than the 12″ square LP….

Previously uncirculated pen and ink from sketchbook, 1995. From the 1920s to his death in 1974, Duke Ellington saw musicians come and go. Saxophonist/clarinetist Harry Carney (b. Boston, 1910) devoted 46 years to performing and recording with the maestro. The trusty sideman occasionally conducted the orchestra in Duke’s absence. After Ellington’s death, Carney was quoted as saying, “This is the worst day of my life. Without Duke I have nothing to live for.” Four months…

Partial illustration, “What is Automation,” Collier’s magazine, March 16, 1956. Pull quote from the layout: Automation has been heralded by some as the threshold to a new Utopia, in which robots do all the work while human drones recline in pneumatic bliss. The complete two-tiered illustration—half-utopian (above), half-apocalyptic—was reproduced in our second anthology, The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora.

Spot illustration, April 1946 Columbia Records Disc Digest, a monthly “commentary on the new Columbia Masterworks and popular records plus interesting features on the artists who make them.” DD was the successor to Flora’s popular monthly Coda, which he created for the label in 1943. Coda was seemingly “retired” when Flora was promoted from Art Director to Advertising Manager in 1945. He illustrated all issues of Coda, but very few DDs. Here’s Flora’s cover for…

Christmas greetings Flora-style from Columbia/Okeh Records. Above: cover of the December 1942 new release flyer from Flora’s then-employer. James had not yet risen to the position of art director (he would in 1943); at the time he was just nearing the end of his first year in the art department under the legendary Alex Steinweiss.

Spot illustration, Columbia Coda, August 1945. That was Flora’s final year as Columbia art director, and the final year of the monthly Coda, which Flora launched in 1943 and illustrated single-handedly. In January 1946, Robert M. Jones assumed the AD role when Flora was promoted to Advertising Manager. Coda was transformed into the monthly Disc Digest, few of which featured Flora illustrations.