Lew Davies and His Orchestra – Two Pianos & Twenty Voices album art
Two Pianos & Twenty Voices was released by Command Records in 1960. The cover was designed by the label’s long-time art director, Charles E. Murphy, with caps from what appears to be Modern No. 20, and a swashy ampersand that was taken from a larger size of Caslon 540 Italic.
A year before, Murphy had invited his former teacher Josef Albers to collaborate on a series of record covers which likewise feature patterns made from geometric shapes like circles and rectangles. For the cover shown here, Murphy did the art himself.
Lew Davies (1911–1968) was a bandleader, composer and arranger in New York City. In 1961, Davies and his orchestra released another album with Command. For the cover of Strange Interlude, Murphy asked S. Neil Fujita to create the art.
The liner notes and track descriptions are set in Century Expanded, with headings in Trade Gothic.
The back cover features a number of typefaces, including Clarendon Condensed for “The greatest advance in sound” and Venus Italic for “for discriminating people”. The title in the box with the track listing is set in all-caps Torino, with side headings in Venus Extended. Production and design credits use Akzidenz-Grotesk.
