Filed Under: "music"

Dummy pages, Gene Krupa and his Columbia recording orchestra, demo booklet, 1941, part of a series of homemade samples prepared by Flora for the Columbia Records art department. Most pages from the booklets (which earned the artist a job at Columbia) were reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora; three of the above four pages were omitted due to space constraints. We posted another unpublished page from the series here and more Flora…

Here are two tempera illustrations discovered in an early- to mid-1960s sketchpad in the Flora collection. The more refined of the two works has a title: Bessie Smith, presumably a vignette of the soulful, bawdy 1920s and ’30s Empress of the Blues. The pianist (great hat!) is unidentified, and we can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of Smith performing with her nipples exposed: The second work, pages away in the same sketchpad, is untitled but…

Acrylic on canvas, 1992. Irving Milfred “Miff” Mole was a legendary American jazz trombonist who first came to prominence in 1920s hot jazz. Tommy Dorsey called him “the Babe Ruth of the trombone.” Amid the painting’s colorful details, pay special attention to this great freakin’ tree:

A draft and a refinement of a common theme. This barrelhouse piano player was roughly rendered for a series of demo booklets the Cincinnati-based Flora crafted in 1941 as a job pitch: “Columbia Records was reissuing old jazz records without much fanfare,” the artist (and jazz aficionado) later wrote. “I had the temerity to make these small booklets to try to point out the error of their ways.” His temerity paid off. In early 1942…

Pen & ink sketch, early 1940s. The title likely derives from the song “I’m a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas,” penned by Phil Baxter in the late 1920s. Dumas is a town in the northwest Texas Panhandle. The song was recorded by many country and jazz artists, including Louis Armstrong (in 1930), and was later a hit for singer-bandleader Phil Harris. Flora’s take is typically idiosyncratic and perhaps references the titular “ding dong” in the…

We’ve come to a belated acceptance, and in some cases respect, for Flora’s late-life work. We still prefer the bizarre jaggedness of his 1940s and 1950s illustrations and paintings, but occasionally the old Jim peeks through the new. The Tympani Five (referring to Louis Jordan‘s fun-loving jump band of the 1940s) isn’t a top-tier work, but the spirit of Jordan synergizes with the spirit of Flora in this 1988 pen & ink with tempera on…

Longtime friend, music collector, and fellow Floraphile David Burd reports a first sighting: The new Flora book is in stores today! I just picked up my copy. We expected the book to hit streets in mid-August. That’s what happens when you work with a niche publisher—they surprise on the upside. (Note: Amazon.com lists a release date of July 29, 2009.) Illustration of celebratory Benny Goodman (above): not in this book. It appeared in our second…

Seriously—you’d have to be crazy to play trumpet in this position. You can’t possibly concentrate on your playing. Hopping on one foot, using your left hand to work the horn and the right to tip your hat. You might be an entertaining showman, but from a musical standpoint, this is a caricature of a trumpet player. Seriously. Detail from Flora illustration for The Great Juke, a short story by Marguerite Young, Mademoiselle magazine, October 1947….

This untitled 1943 Flora tempera, casually referred to as “Jazz Quintet,” was our second limited edition fine art print, issued in early 2008. At the time, we were uncertain about the market potential of Flora works in archival-quality inkjet format, so we opted for a short-run edition of ten. We recently sold the sixth print, and the price for remaining prints has consequently increased (reflecting depleted supply). This is an iconic early Flora work, and…

Now available: a limited edition (25) fine art print of Flora’s 1947 Columbia album cover for Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5. This print was commissioned from Jim Flora Art by Hypergallery, a UK dealer who specializes in reproductions of classic album cover art, and is available exclusively through their website. The print was produced by Flora archivist Barbara Economon from a vintage printer’s proof sheet in the Flora collection. Each print in the edition was hand-signed…

The services of this formerly out-of-work conductor (name: “Barlow”) have been retained for our next book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, scheduled for August publication by Fantagraphics. Barlow has been hired as the volume’s Gallery Guide. As such, he will stand sentinel-like at the beginning of each book section, with dotted lines emerging from his torso indicating chapter titles orbiting in close proximity. He earned the nod over six competing spot illustrations, who…

Floraphile Cary Ginell dropped us a note: Just ran across this image in the Library of Congress archives. It’s a shot taken by William Gottlieb of the Commodore Record Shop in New York in 1947. Check out the guy in the middle of the photo. He’s getting ready to purchase (or sell, if he’s a counter clerk) the Kid Ory Columbia 78 album with Flora’s artwork. BTW, the guy reaching up to pull something from…