hich both worlds were transcended as black creative genius and Western technology were married in massively reproduced radar sound which found the future. A world, also, where Jim Crow found a comfortable and entrenched roost. So, perhaps not surprisingly, strong black presence in some areas, and underrepresentation and absence elsewhere, characterized the anomalous world of jazz. Given the long and close association between jazz musicians and African American painters, illustrators, photographers and sculptors, the paucity of the visual artists' work on the album covers of jazz LP records is remarkable. "Racism in the communications industry," is the first explanation that comes to mind. But the reality is more complex. There had been significant precedents in other communications areas. For example, during the 1920s and '30s, art work by black artists was used as dust jacket illustration for black-authored books produced by major publishers. In the early 1940s, Charles Alston worked as an illustrator for MADEMOISELLE. And from jazz enthusiast and painter Charles Mills' recollection that African American illustrator for ESQUIRE, E. Sims Campbell, "dealt with jazz" and produced work that appeared inside the cover of an ESQUIRE jazz publication in the mid-1940s, it's not hard to imagine this connection extending to his work appearing on the covers of 78 rpm and early LP jazz record albums. ESQUIRE was a leading exponent of jazz in the 1940s. By the 1950s and '60s, a number of African Americans had studied commercial and graphic art and were working in major media, for example, Georg Olden at CBS, Dave Brown at the NEW YORK TIMES, and Frank Braxon at Warner Brothers. And perhaps most significantly: unlike token blacks working in TV, film and publishing, African American jazz musicians were an essential--an absolutely indispensable--element of the business which employed them. Did any of them ever exert pressu...
