Over the past year, Soul Jazz Records, the remarkable label spawned from the impeccable Sounds of the Universe vinyl shop in London, expanded their already impressive musical output with the addition of a book publishing arm. Previous releases New York Noise (devoted to NYC’s post-punk era) and Dancehall: The Rise of Jamaican Dancehall Culture were admirable companions to CD compilations, providing long form liner notes and additional photos, but with the release of this new hardcover coffee table volume, they’ve taken it up a few notches.

In  Freedom Rhythm & Sound Revolutionary Jazz Cover Art 1960-78, Soul Jazz Records present an amazing collection of sleeves from the deepest, deepest jazz music ever. This unique collection of rare cover artwork from revolutionary jazz music is compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the civil rights movement of the 1960s loom large in the imagery as new social heights of self-determination, economic power and musical freedom led to jazz  down new paths – both musical and economic. Years before the D-I-Y cultural revolution of punk, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and others ‘took control’ of their own work by recording, releasing and distributing their own music themselves.

The record sleeves of this era are as iconic and historically unique as the music itself and a striking reflection of the time; pre-desktop publishing, pre-internet, these small-run (sometimes as low as 500 copies), self-made sleeves are graphically bold and radical. Freedom, Rhythm and Sound is the first ever collection of this fascinating goldmine of album art, which represents the first wave of inspired independent production within popular music. Freedom, Rhythm and Sound includes a large introduction contextualizing the music and artwork, as well as features on many of the people involved. Alongside the musicians mentioned above these include Rashied Ali, Steve Reid, Mary Lou Williams, Horace Tapscott, Lloyd McNeil, Tribe, The Last Poets, The Pharoahs, Philip Cohran, Black Artists Group and many others.

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