Crosby Classics

We're grateful to Jeffrey Ferguson, who alerted us to this previously overlooked early Flora cover.

Based on the catalog number (M-555) and some internet research, this cover dates from 1944, which would make it the earliest known illustrated Jim Flora cover. Though unsigned, the tiger-striped typography and horseback rider point to Flora as the artistic culprit. In 1944 he was art director of Columbia, which was issuing back catalog in 78 folio format owing to a recording ban (a musicians union stoppage) and a shellac shortage (due to the war effort). These Crosby recordings dated from the early 1930s.

The High Fidelity Exhibition

You can buy our fourth anthology The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora and browse the man's legendary album illustrations between book covers. Or you can attend Jalopy's similarly named exhibit and be surrounded by four walls of Flora. Those walls will be adorned with vintage LP and 78 covers, proof sheets, and oversized reproductions from our fine art print catalog. The Brooklyn-based club's exhibit opens Friday June 13 from 6 - 8pm, during which yours truly will be on hand to: 1) sign your copy of The High Fidelity Art; 2) spin Flora-centric music (trad jazz, swing, and hard bop, with a smattering of Third Stream); and 3) chat about Flora. Admission is FREE, and you don't have to buy a book to attend. Jalopy has a restaurant next door to the club, and the fare is scrumptious.

Jalopy is located in Red Hook, Brooklyn (315 Columbia Street, specifically). It's not that hard to get to, though locals have a saying, "It takes people in Red Hook two hours to get to Red Hook." You can find it. It's a very cool place to hang, and it's run by a cool couple, Lynette and Geoff Wiley, who recently gave birth to a couple of cool twins.

Get in line ...

... 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 will be sometime in August, not June 30. We dawdled a bit.)

As was the case with the previous three Flora anthologies, The High Fidelity Art was compiled and authored by Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon, designed by Laura Lindgren, and published by Fantagraphics.

The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora

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 through seven and a half months of daily posts.

Here's one:

Blogging neglect aside, we've been at work compiling, writing and editing our fourth Flora compendium to be published by Fantagraphics. The focus this time will be the artist's love of MUSIC.

Our first book, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (2004), featured Flora's known album covers. (No complete discography existed.) Since that book's publication, more vintage covers have been found, as well as the artist's rough drafts and rejected designs. 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 covers (including recent discoveries) and unpublished sketches in one volume, augmented by music images not included in previous volumes. The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora will be the definitive anthology of the maestro's visual compositions, reflecting jazz, classical, and Latin music. Regarding his jam-packed canvases Flora once said he "couldn't stand a static space." There's nothing static about the images in The High Fidelity Art: they wail, dance, bounce, and swing from the chandeliers. They hit notes that shatter glass. This is art to which you can tap your toes and snap your fingers. Flora had a knack for grooving with a paintbrush.

The book will feature a 1998 interview with Flora which I conducted at his home on Bell Island, in Rowayton CT, just a few months before he passed away from stomach cancer. The interview has not been previously published.

The book is scheduled to reach market in August 2013. Barbara Economon and I have provided the contents, and Laura Lindgren expertly designed it—the same team as the first three Flora anthologies. It's currently in the final layout stages.

Bix, birthday boy (and Flora tattoo #3)

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 week we issued a limited edition fine art print of the illustration. Despite his brief, sordid life, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential musicians of the 1920s, the only decade commonly identified with a specific strain of music — "The Jazz Age." Bix lived it, and helped define it.

P.S. Bix and Flora also helped define this man's arm:

Photo: Julie Belcher/Yee-Haw Industries

Bix & Tram print released

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 these figures look exactly like Bix and Tram! Bix was scarlet-complexioned due to his overindulgence of bathtub gin, and Trumbauer was green from showering in money. Little-known historical facts. No need to thank us. Come back often.

The work has been issued in a limited edition run of 25 hand-numbered prints. Prices will increase as the edition sells down.

Jim Flora 2012 Calendars

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:

Inside Sauter-Finegan (print)

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. This archival-quality edition is limited to 25 hand-numbered prints. As with all our limited edition prints, prices will increase as the edition sells down. Nine have already been sold to Floraphiles (some of whom might be closet Sauter-Fineganians).

The Duke and Harry Carney

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 later, Carney passed away.

Flora was an admitted "jazz hound." He sketched, drew, painted and illustrated jazz musicians and scenes sporadically throughout his career, often as commercial assignments. However, in the final decade of his life, the retired artist devoted a considerable amount of creative energy drawing and painting portraits of musicians he admired from the 1920s through the 1960s. Scores—perhaps hundreds—of such works are in the Flora archives; most have never been publicly viewed.

We're in the preliminary stages of a Flora jazz exhibition for 2012. Details as plans develop.

At the Cabin

That's the title of the new CD by Seattle's quirky genre-blending jazz ensemble Reptet. It's the group's fourth release to feature a licensed Jim Flora illustration (all usages initiated by the band's drummer, John Ewing). Information about Reptet, their music, and the gatefold letterpress CD package (designed by Tom Parson) can be found at the Artists Recording Collective. The above image is an inverted detail from Flora's masterful 1951 woodcut Railroad Town.

Christmas, 1942

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.

typographical puzzler

The above typography appears on the covers of at least three RCA Victor LPs from 1956 and 1957, one by pianist Hal Schaefer, another by polymath-bandleader George Russell, and a third by saxophonist/clarinetist Hal McKusick. Of the series, Schaefer explained: "I was invited to participate in The RCA Victor Jazz Workshop. You had to be a composer, arranger and instrumentalist, all rolled into one." (Which abundantly explains Russell's inclusion.)

In each case, the album covers are photographic, the "Jazz Workshop" logo branded in a corner. There's no typographical credit, yet the intricate lettering appears to be the handiwork of Flora, who often toyed with typography and illustrated dozens of RCA Victor (front and back) covers between 1954 and 1961. The letter fills reflect Flora's painstaking mischief.

One Floraphile insists on the benefit of the doubt. That would be me. Until proven wrong, I remain insistent.

Redskin Romp (typography)

Hand-lettered typography from cover of Charlie Barnet's 1955 compilation Redskin Romp 7" EP (also released as a 12" LP). Barnet (1913-1991) was a Swing Era bandleader and saxophonist whose first 78 rpm hit, "Cherokee," released in 1939, inspired the Indian-themed title of this 33-1/3 rpm hi-fi retrospective. Above is a section of the full cover; that's a non-lookalike caricature of Barnet in the lower left.

Benny Goodman @ 101

Jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, as portrayed by Flora for the March 1952 issue of Columbia's monthly Coda new release booklet. Goodman was a founding father of the mid-1930s jazz big band ("swing") style—launched in force after he hired arranger Fletcher Henderson in 1935.

As he matured, he performed and recorded classical repertoire; the above figures illustrated Coda's preview of Goodman's recording (with the American Art Quartet) of Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings.

Flora was a fan of Goodman, and rendered him many times for Columbia and RCA Victor releases and promotional material. Asked about his encounters with the jazz musicians he illustrated, Flora told me (in 1998):

I didn't get to know many of them intimately. Benny Goodman I knew better than any of them. I did some photographic sessions with Benny. He was always difficult to get along with, but I never had any problems.

Goodman was born this day in 1909.

Fletcher Henderson

Fletcher Henderson, tempera on paper, 1942, as reproduced in our third anthology, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora. In the 1920s, exploring ideas gleaned from orchestra leader Paul Whiteman, pianist Henderson created the template for what evolved into the jazz "swing" big bands of the 1930s. He was one of the most influential musicians/bandleaders of the 1920s, but others achieved greater and more lasting fame developing concepts pioneered by Henderson.

Flora, a lifelong jazz enthusiast, rendered a number of works named after Henderson, including at least two sketches and two paintings.

The original was purchased from the artist by Eric Kohler in the 1990s. We thank Eric for providing the work for reproduction.

Bix @ 5 score + 7

Columbia Coda, April 1952, listing 7" discs featuring recordings of legendary jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, born this date in 1903. The page is crowned with a Flora horn. At the time this circular was published, Beiderbecke would have been a relatively young age 49—if he hadn't died 21 years before (which was 17 years before the introduction of the 7" disc). We wrote about Bix @ 106, chronicling his enormous musical significance as well as his self-destructive predilections.

frame job

Our Jim Flora "Plant You Now, Dig You Later" letterpress notecards are multi-purpose. One customer (whose name, forgive us, we've misplaced) had these 1950s jazz hepcats framed and sent us a snapshot. Others have used them as ... notecards.

Flora crosses the pond

Nine Jim Flora illustrations, album covers, and details found their way into yesterday's UK Telegraph Sunday jazz supplement (print edition). We were approached by one of the paper's art directors two weeks ago and provided dozens of vintage Flora music images (several previously unpublished). Their selections give the finished layouts a visual syncopation.

A pdf of the five pages can be downloaded here. (The pages will be online at Telegraph.co.uk shortly.)

three legends

Three jazz legends, stacked, in the July 1952 issue of Coda, Columbia's new release monthly. From the top:

Harry James (trumpet)
Benny Goodman (clarinet)
Art Tatum (piano)

Each had a new LP that month: James with Soft Lights, Sweet Trumpet, Goodman's Let's Hear the Melody, and Art Tatum Concert.

As art director, Flora launched Coda in 1943, and provided most illustrations for the (largely classical music) monthly until he was named Sales Promotion Manager in 1945. This change of desk deprived him of artistic assignments. (Coda morphed into Disc Digest under new art director Robert M. Jones.)

In 1952, when Flora was a hustling freelancer, Columbia hired him to revive the publication. By then, Coda—in a downsized format—showcased the label's jazz, popular, and ethnic music roster. It lasted less than two years, by which time Flora had greatly expanded his client base. But because it was a music-related gig, he probably would have continued illustrating Coda as long as Columbia kept the monthly alive.

Gene Krupa demo booklet (1941)

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 artistic impressions of the great jazz drummer Krupa here.