This 1959 album was originally titled simply Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, but quickly became known as Moanin’ after the first tune on the LP, and was later reissued with that title.

The original cover features the artist name and catalog number in a very narrow column of text, causing “Messengers” to be split over three lines, with a mix of condensed and extra-condensed Franklin Gothic.

The reissue instead uses a single line of Grotesque No. 9 that spans the width of the cover.

The back cover is mostly Bodoni, apart from the song titles, set in Futura Bold, and the bottommost line in Vogue.

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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.

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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.

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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]