The Art of Jazz - David Stone Martin Record Cover Art

In the world of jazz there is one artist collected the world over who has never played an instrument not even a note of music but has left his mark on the jazz culture. Illustrator David Stone Martin was one of the most prolific and influential graphic designers of the postwar era, with his signature hand sketched graphics with two or three primary colors, perfectly capturing the energy and spontaneity of the jazz idiom.

David Stone Martin was born in Chicago and studied at the Chicago Art Institute there. During the 1930's and 1940's he worked for Government agencies, as supervisor of mural projects of the Federal Artists Project, art director for the Tennessee Valley Authority, graphic arts director for the Office of Strategic Services and art director for the Office of War Information, where he was a colleague and friend of Ben Shahn, the artist.

Martin's work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian Institution. He won numerous awards from the Society of Illustrators and the Art Directors Clubs of New York City, Boston and Detroit.

His diverse pieces included illustrations for books and numerous posters, billboards and advertisements for film, television and the theater, including the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater productions of the 1960's and 1970's.

Martin's portraits for Time Magazine covers included Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene J. McCarthy, Mao Zedong and George C. Wallace. He also worked for Time's sister publication, Life Magazine.

Martin designed several hundred album covers, primarily those of jazz musicians album portraits, mostly done in distinctive heavy black-ink lines, included likenesses of Stan Getz, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington. Martin did nearly all the covers for the Asch, Clef and Jazz at the Philharmonic labels of the 1940's and 1950's.



The following are articles written by "Fox Music" on and about our favorite subject "Vinyl Records" from care and maintenance to record cover art and everything in-between. All the article show off our flickr images and sets. These articles are hosted on a safe web community "Squidoo" - Stop in read the articles, Write your own articles, or show off your flickr images.... I Squidoo, Do You ??

Vinyl Record Care and Maintenance
Cleanliness is absolutely mandatory to achieve the best sound quality of your vinyl records. A clean vinyl record will not only sound better, but last longer. It has long been proven that the playing of dirty records will result in a rapid deterioration of quality and degradation of the original recorded sound, or simply can cause permanent damage to your vinyl records. Read More

Grading Your Vinyl Records
The following is the grading system first developed by Goldmine Records. Virtually all methods currently in use for the grading of records, is based in some way, shape, or form, on this system. Rather than offer some variation of the original system first developed by Goldmine, Fox Music Company will display the Goldmine record grading method in it's entirety. Read More

What Is A Vinyl Record??
Vinyl records were introduced and marketed as the unbreakable record, unlike its shellac counterpart of days gone by, that would break at the drop of a hat and becomes more brittle over time.Read More

David Stone Martin and the Art of Jazz
In the world of jazz there is one artist collected the world over who has never played an instrument not even a note of music but has left his mark on the jazz culture. Illustrator David Stone Martin was one of the most prolific and influential graphic designers of the postwar era, with his signature hand sketched graphics with two or three primary colors, perfectly capturing the energy and spontaneity of the jazz idiom. Read More

What Type of Records Do You Collect??
Vinyl Record Collectors come in as many shapes as sizes and generations as the vinyl records they collect. Why do people collect records?? Read More

What Is A Phonograph Record??
A phonograph record is an analog sound medium that consists of a flat disc record with an inscribed modulated spiral groove usually starting near the outside edge (lead-in) and ending near the center of the record (lead-out).The audio content of the record is contained within the spiral groove which extends for more than a half mile. The groove itself is actually narrower than the thickness of a human hair yet is capable of producing the highest frequencies the human ear can detect, to the fundamentals that are felt rather than heard. Read More

Lenny Bruce the Charlie Parker of Comedy
When once asked to describe jazz, trumpet legend Miles Davis sarcastically but saliently replied, "You can sweat it down to four words: Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker." Now trying to apply that same old-school, new-school trailblazer to comedy is somewhat more a problem. Read More

Static Electricity and Your Vinyl Records
Because static electricity plays such a major role in the problem of vinyl record cleaning and that we have repeatedly referred to the malice effects of static electricity, we feel an explanation of this phenomenon is in order. Read More

Audio Rarities
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