John Mayall – Jazz Blues Fusion album art
From Wikipedia:
Jazz Blues Fusion is a live album by John Mayall. The first side is from a gig in Boston at the Boston Music Hall on 18 November 1971, and the second side was selected from two concerts at Hunter College, New York, on 3 and 4 December 1971.
The stencil caps used on the front cover are a bit of a mystery to me. On first look, they are from Filmotype Quiet. One characteristic glyph in that typeface is the low-waisted R with the curved leg. Unlike the P, the R on the album cover has a higher waistline, though, and no curved exit stroke. Was there an alternate? Quiet’s K likewise has a curved terminal – the one in “New York” doesn’t.
As soon as you zoom in on the bridges, things get messier. Not only are they a tad wider than in Quiet. In several glyphs, they are positioned differently. This includes A, H, M, V, W, Y, and Z.
It looks like the font in use is a close follower (or precursor?) of Quiet, of unknown origin. It’s neither Cargo Stencil Bold (Photo-Lettering), M-6 (VGC), 11–2 QU Mod Stencil (Lettergraphics), or Expo (Typeshop) – these all match the original Quiet. Maybe Britton Walters has the answer. In 2001, he made a digital font named G.I. Jerk … which is a match for the letterforms seen on the album cover from 1972. [edit: Ian found the missing link: it’s Sans Stencil, see comments]
No cover designer is credited. Photography by Steve Katleman (front) and Nancy Throckmorton (back).
John Mayall died at his home in California on 22 July 2024, at the age of 90. RIP.
For comparison: glyph set for M-6, VGC’s (presumably direct) copy of Filmotype Quiet, as shown in a 1969 catalog.
The narrow sans used for the credits on the back cover is Compacta.
3 Comments on “John Mayall – Jazz Blues Fusion album art”
Mr. Walters, the designer of G.I. Jerk, kindly got back to me. He writes:
I’ll keep an eye out for the source of this alphabet. Would be interesting to know if it preceded Filmotype Quiet, which came out sometime between 1951 and 1955. For the time being, I’ll treat it as a variant of Quiet.
Daylight Fonts shows a font called Sans Stencil that appears to be a match. Interestingly, Fred Lambert (Compacta’s creator) is listed as its designer.
Ian, you found the missing link, congrats!
Sans Stencil now has a page. The all-caps stencil alphabet was repoduced in Letter Forms: 150 Complete Alphabets, a book compiled by Fred Lambert and published by Peter Owen in 1964. It was later reissued in abridged form as Letter Forms: 110 Complete Alphabets, again by Peter Owen in 1969, and further edited by Theodore Menten for Dover Publications in 1972. In the Dover edition, the design of Sans Stencil is credited to Lambert himself, with a 1959 date. It looks like Lambert made a revision of the earlier Filmotype Quiet, but forgot to mention the source.
I don’t know if Sans Stencil was ever produced as a font (that is, before Britton Walters made his digital G.I. Jerk in 2001). Chances are the letterforms were reproduced directly from one of the books. I’ve added our tag “lettering from alphabet sample”. And since the second typeface is Compacta, I was able to add this Use to the “2+ typefaces by 1 designer” set. Thanks!