Soul Finger is a 1965 album by drummer Art Blakey, released on the Limelight Label. Design by Jim Schubert, with photography by Bob Prokop. The typeface appears to be Matterhorn Bold by Headliners which also came with an Outline style. Matterhorn is distinguished from similar condensed grotesks by a beardless G and a thin diagonal in N.

[More info on Discogs]

Designer Woody Woodward was into type-only album covers. We previously featured one such designs of his, made in 1963 for The De-Fenders, with Inserat-Grotesk.

The cover shown here is from the year before, for an album by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers originally released in 1957. It’s combined with a session recorded by the Elmo Hope Quintet featuring saxophonist Harold Land in October 1957. Woodward used Grotesque No. 9 Italic and repeated the title five times, building a mesmerizing wall of type. You can listen to the music on the Internet Archive.

[More info on Discogs]

The track list on the back is set in News Gothic Bold, with Kaufmann Bold for the headings. The roman used for John William Hardy’s liner notes is a bit too small to identify.

Roots & Herbs is an album by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, recorded in 1961 at the same sessions as The Freedom Rider, but not released until 1970, on the Blue Note label.

The typeface is Milton Glaser’s Baby Teeth, featuring an ampersand that’s different from the one in the original photostat design and also the one in Letraset’s adaptation. Chances are it’s the one included in Photo-Lettering’s version.

[More info on Discogs]

The Quartette Très Bien was a jazz combo based in St. Louis, Missouri, led by pianist Jeter Thompson (1930–2017). The cover of their 1966 album Bully! was designed by Loring Eutemey. He combined two related typefaces by the same designer: the title is in the medium width of Benguiat Buffalo. The group’s name above features Benguiat Zenedipity. Buffalo had a non-rounded companion named Serendipity. Zenedipity appears to be a spinoff of Serendipity, with flared bottom halves. Eutemey worked with both Buffalo and Zenedipity for several other record covers, too.

In memory of Ed Benguiat, jazz drummer and type designer extraordinaire, who passed away on this day two years ago.

[More info on Discogs]

The text on the back cover with the track list, credits, and the liner notes by Bob Rolontz is set in Anzeigen-Grotesk and News Gothic.

Stereo release

A typeface designed by a French (?) family duo used for an album recorded by an Italian family duo: Domino (J.C. Demarchi & M. Demarchi), released by Mecanorma in 1972, serves for the monochrome cover of Clouds (Lino Castiglione & Pasquale Castiglione), released on Octopus Records ‎(OTP 0293) in 1975.

Via What Is Wrong With Grooving:

The slightly African influenced and extraordinary grooving flute tune “Games” is my long time favorite on this lovely Italian Library album. […] There was also a reissue, released 2016 on Spettro (SP/L04) records. Also from Italy but comes with a different cover artwork.

[More info on Discogs]

While the clouds on the front cover are rather dark, they have cleared up on the back.

Inspired by the artwork for 1950s jazz, country and swing albums released by Verve, Sun, Blue Note, Capitol and similar this cover uses Futura Bold Oblique on the top part of the visual, Futura Bold for the artist name, Indubitaly NF for “Guitar In” and Franklin Gothic caps for “Hi-Fi”.

Filmotype Gem, set on a circle, with fanned letterforms. See Nick’s overview of adjustments made to letters on a curve and Photo-Lettering’s Circoflair Techniques, both included in the dedicated Flickr group, Text on a Curve.

Gem is part of Filmotype’s “G series” of Grotesques, issued in 1953. A digital version was made by Mark Simonson in 2011.

Spotted on Typophonic. The condensed grot appears to represent an early use of Inserat-Grotesk by Haas.