Matthew Rybicki - Happy Accident

Working on this album cover for the superb jazz bassist Matthew Rybicki a few years ago, The Leopard was struggling a little bit coming up with a strong visual. Did an ink drawing of Matthew, but it felt a bit static and just wasn’t “moving”. I scanned it into the computer and brought it into Illustrator and used the tool “Live Trace”, to clean up my ink lines a little and make my drawing a vector file and editable. At one point, I accidentally grabbed the figure and inadvertently “stretched” it. I was about to hit “undo” because it looked like a mistake to me

at first, but I noticed it created an interesting effect. All of the sudden the title “Driven” and the art made sense. I framed the top like a vintage album cover with a little scribble where the record logo might be. Matthew seemed to love it. It was just one of those things. Jazz, man.

Time Run Out: Dave Brubeck

 

Among the first jazz records The Leopard ever listened to in a semi-serious way was Miles Davis'  seminal Kind of Blue,  John Coltrane's My Favorite Things and Dave Brubeck's Time Out. Miles' album made me appreciate the sensual intricacies of improvisational music, Coltrane the fiery expression, and with Brubeck, the seemingly limitless possibilities of the medium.

Tunes such as "Blue Rondo A La Turk", " Kathy's Waltz" and the massively popular "Take Five"  expressed what jazz could be, and where it was going. it could be crazy popular (Time Out was the first jazz recording to sell over a million copies), but also challenging. Brubeck was a visionary.

 As Donald Fagen Of Steely Dan immortalized in his tune "New Frontier":

I hear you're mad about Brubeck

I like your eyes, I like him too
He's an artist, a pioneer
We've got to have some music on the new frontier".

Click here for the Dave Brubeck composition "Blue Shadows In The Street".