Richard Mantel, the bandit on the lower right, and I had lunch last week. Richard is an artist and a designer who spent years as an art director with Columbia Records in the sixties and seventies. We’ve been friends for many years. Around the time I met Richard, I was working with George Wein, who had this record over the fireplace behind his desk. Richard has also been the designer of all the beautiful Mosaic Records sets since that company began reissuing those amazing box sets of Blue Note, Commodore, Keynote and other label’s back catalogs. One of Richard’s most famous covers is Thelonious Monk “Underground” for which he won a Grammy award for best record cover design in 1969.

(72 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Jean Laporte et son Orchestre   “Le French-CanCan de Paris.   A French Festival Ep.

(16 votes, average: 2.81 out of 5)

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The great Rube Goldberg illustrated this otherwise forgettable barber shop quartet record “Barber Shop in Hi-Fi”   Harmonized by The Play-Tonics.   Goldberg became synonymous with fantastically imaginative machines set in motion by a series of comical (and at times complicated) reactions and effects.   Here for example a mechanical barber is powered by the quartet’s sad song provoking the parrot’s tears; the plumbers response triggering the mouse, the cat lifting the candle to ignite the rocket, etc… Good fun always.   There are books of this stuff and there are several contests around the world known as Rube Goldberg contests which challenge high school students to make a complex machine to perform a simple task.   According to Wikipedia, the term “Rube Goldberg machine” first appeared in Webster’s Dictionary with the definition “accomplishing, by extremely complex roundabout means, what actually or seemingly could be done simply.”

(23 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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“No such number, no such zone”   George Feyer (“Piano Con Ritmo”) Ecos de Hollywood Brazilian Sinter Label.

(23 votes, average: 3.04 out of 5)

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“Basie’s Basement”   (See Andy Warhol’s illustrated cover taken from this one)

(29 votes, average: 4.72 out of 5)

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George Petty illustration on this early rock and roll compilation from Brazil on Decca Records. “Ele Gosta de Rock ‘N Roll”

(28 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

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Musique pour… for what!?   We’re looking for a title, let us know what you see here.

(26 votes, average: 4.58 out of 5)

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Joe Biviano and his Orchestra. “Let’s Waltz” David Records.

(29 votes, average: 3.90 out of 5)

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“Look Ma! 4 Hands”

(28 votes, average: 3.68 out of 5)

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