Likely Story

This spring and summer I had the pleasure of working on an album design--a cd and LP--for my friend, colleague, and guitar coach Tom Dempsey. The straight-up jazz record was called "Likely Story," and we knew we wanted to include a portrait of Tom and his bandmates in the album design. We started with a few concepts, from very simple to a little more imaginative. 

There was one imaginative concept that was really fun to draw--I wanted to play on the concept of what I would think would be a likely story. (In my mind, it went something like, "So there I was in the middle of the woods..." But the concept didn't strike Tom in quite the same way. It's me that has the connection to the woods, after all. So this felt right for me​, but needed to be edited to be right for him. He liked, however, the concept of the doorway in the middle of nowhere leading somewhere. Just not the woods! How about the city?

We played around with a few sketches for making this have the same sort of feel but in an urban setting--it was tricky to find a spot where the concept would still work.  Tom wanted the feel of brownstones, something very New York without being touristy. While we figured out what that setting was, exactly, I worked on the base of the drawing, which we would change a bit (particularly in the poster--an early idea of Tom's for the cd cover for which we had done a photo shoot.) This drawing below gave me the sense of how it would look against some sort of darkness (here, playing with the concept of sky over the dark woods).

We decided on a roof top with an impossible doorway. We'd have room for his name and we changed the poster design for a nod to a drawing I had done for him after a gig. I kept the brownstone graphic, focusing on the architectural details and the light in the window below. 

We could play on the magical quality of the cover (and title) by repeating it, in a way, on the inside cover of the CD (the back of the disc for the LP). Here we would have room for track lists, dedications, and other information. And the guitar Tom used on the album. 

For the back of the CD/LP. Tom had wanted portraits of his bandmates. I wanted them all to appear as illustrations, not just photos. Getting this to look right took some time. We had to have enough space for 10 tracks names for the cd. 6 for the LP, which was slightly different dimensions, dedications, a logo, a UPC code and a QR code (for the LP), and dedications. So I had to simplify the brownstone and remove the windows. I had to leave room in the sky for the tracklist. 

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Going to be in the city on Friday, August 8? Come by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem and see the free launch concert and pick up an album for yourself.

This was a ton of fun. Thanks for thinking of me, Tom!