“Jazz Eyes” Regent Records (a division of Savoy). Jazz by John Jenkins, Donald Byrd, Curtis Fuller, Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor. Supervised by Ozzie Cadena. Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. Album designed by Portrait Productions.

(40 votes, average: 3.58 out of 5)

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A nice illustrated cover by Ben Shahn (1898-1969). “Chicago Style Jazz” on Columbia.

Art, as I saw it one day when I helped hang a National Academy show while I was a student there, was about cows. In those days, early in the twenties, there were many cow paintings. More than that, the cows always stood knee-deep in purple shadows. For the life of me I never learned to see purple where there was no purple — and I detested cows. I was frankly distressed at the prospects for me as an artist.

But there came a time when I stopped painting, stopped in order to evaluate all these doubts. If I couldn’t see purple where there was no purple–I wouldn’t use it. If I didn’t like cows, I wouldn’t paint them. What then was I to paint? Slowly I found that I must paint those things that were meaningful to me–that I could honestly paint in the shapes and colors I felt belonged to them. What shall I paint? Stories. – Ben Shahn

Ben Shahn was an artist who spoke to the world. A man of uncompromising beliefs, he became the most popular artist of his age – his work was on the cover of Time as well as in the Museum of Modern Art.

Shahn came to prominence in the 1930s with “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti,” a politically pointed series about the Italian anarchists who many believed were framed for murder. He went on to paint murals and take photographs for the government during the New Deal, and to become a successful painter and commercial artist.

In 1956-57, Ben Shahn was the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University (poetry was broadly defined as “all poetic expression in language, music, or the fine arts.”) During that time he gave a series of lectures, later collected and published by Harvard University Press. The Shape of Content has been in print and widely read since its publication in 1957. In fact, many people come into contact with Shahn’s writing before they are aware of his art.

(40 votes, average: 4.03 out of 5)

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“Pal Joey”   The Don Elliott Quartet   Hallmark Records

(30 votes, average: 3.40 out of 5)

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Carmen McRae Bethlehem Records. Designed by Burt Goldblatt

(33 votes, average: 3.18 out of 5)

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“Dizzy in Paris” Contemporary Records

(50 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)

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“Grimm’s Hip Fairy Tales” As Dug by Don Morrow. Roulette Records.   This notion of “updating” the classics (from Shakespeare to Fairy Tales to TV commercials, even the bible) with jive talk and hipster lingo was done numerous times by performers like Lord Buckley, Del Close and DJ Al “Jazzbo” Collins (Who also released a beatnik version of these familiar stories – “Grimm Fairy Tales for Hip Kids”.)

(32 votes, average: 3.44 out of 5)

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“At the Hi-Fi Jazz Band Ball”   Gene Mayl’s Dixieland Rhythm Kings.   Riverside.   Designed by Paul Bacon.   Photo by Paul Weller.   Look at the elegance of that tone arm, sweeper, cartridge and needle.   What a photo!   A portrait of a turntable from the golden age of Hi-Fi.

(36 votes, average: 3.61 out of 5)

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Billy Taylor at the London House ABC-Paramount. (1956)   With Earl May on Bass and Percy Brice on Drums.   This was one of those albums that was in my house growing up and that turned me on to jazz as a teenager.   I met Billy Taylor once I moved to New York.   He started a New York City non-profit organization called Jazzmobile that for 40+ years has brought jazz musicians to neighborhoods around the city for free concerts on the back of a flatbed truck.   I spent many a Wednesday night in the late 80’s at Grant’s Tomb on 125th and Riverside Drive listening to Billy, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Horace Silver and other legends swinging hard and easy under summer skies.

(20 votes, average: 3.90 out of 5)

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The Thelonious Monk Quintet.   A Prestige EP.   Designed and Produced by Don Schlitten.     With Sonny Rollins, Tenor; Julius Watkins, French Horn; Percy Heath, Bass; and Willie Jones, Drums.

(42 votes, average: 4.38 out of 5)

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Jack Kerouac with jazz greats Zoot Sims and Al Cohn. (1958). His second album on Hanover after “Poems for a Beat Generation” on which he was accompanied by TV talk show host Steve Allen. Produced by Bob Thiele. Click on the back cover here and hopefully you can read the liner notes by Gilbert Millstein. Kerouac calls Zoot and Al “Holy Blakean babies” and says “Zoot and Al blow thoughtful, sweet metaphysical sorrows.” Kerouac actually sings on one cut with Zoot playing piano for the first time on record. Here’s one of the haikus: “In my winter cabinet/the fly has/died of old age” Beat that.

Track listing: American Haikus; Hard Hearted Old Farmer; The Last Hotel & Some Of The Dharma; Poems from the Unpublished Book of The Blues; Old Western Movies; Conclusion Of The Railroad Earth.

Hear some of this record HERE.

(55 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5)

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