A young, hot Ann Margret (like an American Brigitte Bardot), was adored the world over and adorned many record covers from Asia to Eastern Europe to South America.   Here’s a cool one from the early sixties on a cheap “Top Hits” compilation from Korea.

(19 votes, average: 4.11 out of 5)

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A cover from the Epic in Jazz series that featured the wonderful cartoons by children’s book author and illustrator William Steig   Steig was a cartoonist for the New Yorker beginning in the thirties.   He passed away in 2003.   Musically this record is a compilation of great small group sessions led by Duke Ellington’s sidemen Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart and Barney Bigard (four cool cats!)

(12 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)

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*You know.   Cigarettes are called “fags” in the UK.

(7 votes, average: 3.86 out of 5)

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United Artists Jazz (UAJ 14003) Bill Evans, Piano; Jim Hall, Guitar. Produced by Alan Douglas. Front Cover Photo by fashion photographer Toni Frissel of a woman floating in the water at Weeki Wachee Spring, Florida was published in Harper’s Bazaar in December 1947.

This beautiful gatefold album includes an “essay” inside by Barry J. Titus after Jim Hall and Bill Evans titled “Wait Quickly” that looks almost like “greek type” or non-sensical strings of words. Not sure if it’s beat poetry or just impressionistic rambling. One section reads “Eyes dance truth’s instrument. Sieve, sickle and sloat, red grimes grey molds parted skins furrowed tissue lives skeletal screams. Longbrown stone blunt nose raised. “Naked day?” puffed sound slices blush.” Huh?! But you can’t look at Jazz album cover art without considering the simple power of this dream-like photograph.

This album, from 1962, was the first collaboration between the two (Intermodulation four years later being the second). This was Evans first recording after some time off following the death of bassist Scott LaFaro. Hall at the time was in Sonny Rollins quartet. Musically, it is a sophisticated, subtle dialog between two jazz giants in their prime. Murray Horowitz, on NPR, called it “Lovely impressionistic music that draws a perfect winter afternoon picture.”

(30 votes, average: 4.73 out of 5)

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Clef Records with nice cover by David Stone Martin. This album is a departure from the mainly solo recordings released by Art Tatum as it features a quartet with drummer Alvin Stoller, bassist John Simmons and trumpeter Roy “Little Jazz” Eldridge.

(18 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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Cover Photo: Hal Buksbaum

Side 1:

6. You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want To Do It)

Side 2:

6. Lonely Street

Patsy Cline was the greatest female country music star in the world when she died tragically young in an airplane crash in 1963, a year after this — her third lp — was issued.

(25 votes, average: 4.08 out of 5)

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This is a nice Mexican lp cover with a sweet children’s illustration. (It also includes a stereotypically racist, watermelon-eating, barefooted black boy!) The music and stories are by Cri Cri (born Francisco Gabilondo Soler in MÃ ©xico).

Cri Cri (means Cricket) songs are about animals, trains and children. Each song has a different musical style (tango, fox-trot, danzon, etc.) and have been children’s favorites since Soler began composing these pieces for the radio in the 30’s.

(8 votes, average: 3.63 out of 5)

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Japan Victor 10″

(31 votes, average: 3.71 out of 5)

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