California Cool: West Coast Jazz of the 50s & 60s: The Album Cover Art (1992)

In the '50s jazz established an outpost for itself in California, so suitable album art for this upbeat, mostly white, and decidedly laid-back version of America's greatest art form had to be devised. California Cool: West Coast Jazz of the 50s & 60s: The Album Cover Art collects more than 250 wonderfully bucolic examples of jazz presented sunny-side up: Chet Baker and his band pictured on a yacht, Thelonious Monk boarding a San Francisco streetcar, Hampton Hawes and Barney Kessel on the golf course, June Christy with a tall drink of something cool, and plenty of scantily clad sunshine girls to front for Howard Rumsey, Curtis Counce, and Shelly Manne. A worthy sequel to Chronicle's previously published book of Blue Note album covers. A