series of editorials on prominent designers
through 12 glorious years, american designer reid miles created over 500 LP covers for the jazz label blue note records.
some of the covers represent the absolute gold standard of modernist typography and are widely recognized as the best-designed record sleeves in the history of jazz.
Reid Miles, 1970s
© Blue Note Records.
19
27
born in Chicago
40
enrolls at the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles
Chouinard Art Institute. © California Institute of the Arts.
50
moves to New York
55
starts working at Esquire magazine
56
hired as principal LP artwork designer by Blue Note
Co-founder of Blue Note Records Alfred Lion and photographer Francis Wolff. © Francis Wolff / Blue Note Records.
Jimmy Smith—At The Organ (Volume 3), 1956.
67
leaves Blue Note after label is sold
93
Los Angeles. © California State Library.
dies at age 66 in Los Angeles
50 bucks an album.—reid miles on his fixed commission at blue note
Jimmy Smith—Midnight Special, 1961.
In the 1950s, the independent music label Blue Note began issuing modern jazz albums as 12-inch LPs. Unlike 78-rpm discs packaged in brown envelopes, 10- and 12-inch long-playing records required proper covers. That is how the era of sleeve art started, and Reid Miles was one of the pioneers who perfected the format.
Miles’ first record was Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet (also known as BLP 1509). Over the next decade, Miles created a distinctive style for hard bop records, using tinted black-and-white photographs, sans-serif fonts (sometimes printed by letterpress) and a limited palette that, except for black and white, often consisted of a single color. Miles’ major influence came from all the usual suspects: the Bauhaus and the Swiss.
Milt Jackson and The Thelonious Monk Quintet, 1955.
i think typography in the early ‘50s was in a renaissance period. it happened especially on album covers because they were not so restrictive as advertising. —reid miles
Art Taylor—A.T.'s Delight, 1960.
Perhaps the most surprising fact about Reid Miles: he never really was a jazz fan. The designer always worked with notes from one of the label’s founders, Alfred Lion, which described the recording sessions and the character of the album.
Reid Miles never cared much about most of the records—he gave his copies of Blue Note albums to friends or traded them in secondhand record stores for classical music. Yet Miles’ graphics never failed to create a perfect package for any album and reflected the nature of jazz itself.
Hank Mobley and Alfred Lion during Mobley's Soul Station session. Van Gelder Studio, New Jersey, 1960. © Francis Wolff / Blue Note Records.
Donald Byrd—A New Perspective, 1963.
Lee Morgan—Leeway, 1960.