The High Fidelity Art Of Jim Flora

by Irwin Chusid 11 x 10, SC, 180 pages, FC, $34.95 The first collection of the marvelous, mischievous album cover art of Jim Flora (1914-1998), collecting most of his known covers. The book also includes rarely seen illustrations and covers from Columbia's "Coda" trade journal and elsewhere.

The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora is the definitive anthology of the maestro’s visual compositions, reflecting jazz, classical, and Latin music. Regarding his jam-packed canvases Flora once said he “couldn’t stand a static space.” There’s nothing static about the images in The High Fidelity Art: they wail, dance, bounce, and swing from the chandeliers. Flora had a knack for grooving with a paintbrush, making art to which you can tap your toes and snap your fingers.

Flora was prolific in his commercial work; he created art privately in equal measure and often with more fiendish pleasure. His style is cartoonish, evoking childhood nostalgia and dereliction of adult responsibility. There are clowns and kitty cats, grinning faces and beaming suns. But Flora did not restrain his darker impulses. His montages are crammed with bullets and knives and fang-baring snakes. Muggers run amok, demons frolic with rouged harlots, and Flora's characters suffer that is, are afflicted by the artist with severe disfigurement. The banal and the violent often coexist within inches of each other on the canvas.

The highly anticipated reprint of a classic children's book by renowned illustrator and graphic designer James Flora.

A third collection of amusing nightmares from the demonic wand of Jim Flora: art and artifacts spanning Flora's career, including more from his Columbia Records days, children's book roughs and outtakes, rarely seen cartoon-science illustrations and more.

A photographic look into the world of vinyl record collectors—including Questlove—in the most intimate of environments—their record rooms. Compelling photographic essays from photographer Eilon Paz are paired with in-depth and insightful interviews to illustrate what motivates these collectors to keep digging for more records. The reader gets an up close and personal look at a variety of well-known vinyl champions, including Gilles Peterson and King Britt, as well as a glimpse into the collections of known and unknown DJs, producers, record dealers, and everyday enthusiasts. Driven by his love for vinyl records, Paz takes us on a five-year journey unearthing the very soul of the vinyl community.

A #1 bestseller from coast to coast, Den of Thieves tells the full story of the insider-trading scandal that nearly destroyed Wall Street, the men who pulled it off, and the chase that finally brought them to justice. Pulitzer Prize–winner James B. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the eighties’ biggest names on Wall Street—Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine—created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions, until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America’s most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice. Based on secret grand jury transcripts, interviews, and actual trading records, and containing explosive new revelations about Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky, Den of Thieves weaves all the facts into an unforgettable narrative—a portrait of human nature, big business, and crime of unparalleled proportions.

Irwin Chusid profiles a number of "outsider" musicians - those who started as "outside" and eventually came "in" when the listening public caught up with their radical ideas. Included are The Shaggs, Tiny Tim, Syd Barrett, Joe Meek, Captain Beefheart, The Cherry Sisters, Daniel Johnston, Harry Partch, Wesley Wilis, and others.