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Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colussus

As a kid, I was always fascinated by my father’s jazz album covers. There were these black men with their instruments illuminated in these awesome silhouettes. 

I think of all album covers of my lifetime, the jazz ones were the best. 70s rock and soul and funk probably come in very close.

It was probably then that I started reading liner notes and paying attention to who was who. The covers drew me in first, then it was the music. I didn’t even know what the music sounded like when I first saw many of those jazz covers sitting there, I just know that there was an aesthetic appeal for me.

And so I start a journey to remember some of those covers (many of them still in brother’s possession and I used a few some years back when I was still DJing vinyl). In my journey of remembrance, I’m gong to post a cover here and there — maybe from those jazz years, maybe from the funk and soul era, or even maybe from that classic rock period. 

I’ll attempt to link a memory, or a lyric, or free-thought poetry to an album cover. These won’t be albums I owned, but only the ones from my father, my older cousin, and my older brother — who were all my earliest music influences. They taught me to appreciate music.

And so this first one goes out to my father and my brother. My father — because it was in his collection. My brother — because he became attached to it playing sax in junior high and high school and taking on the moniker Sonny. This one is for them.