The Impulse! label LP covers by Robert Flynn / Viceroy are among the best of a great era. Yet this 1966 sleeve for John Coltrane’s turbulent, single-track album Ascensiondoesn’t attempt to represent the sound of the music.
But all the elements in the design – the portrait, the typography, the use of colour and white space – express the idea of Coltrane’s work, always questioning and questing. The album cover communicates immediately that this is serious music. Not pop, not classical, not straight-ahead jazz, but something else.
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