For our next Art & Design: In Focus feature, we take a look at iconic New York free jazz label, Impulse!

When Creed Taylor launched Impulse! Records in 1960 as a subsidiary of ABC-Paramount, he didn’t pull any punches. One of the first albums released by the essential New York free jazz label, future home to artists including Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and McCoy Tyner, was John Coltrane’s essential “Africa/Brass” in 1961. Another was Ray Charles’ hit album Genius + Soul = Jazz.

An iconic label in every sense of the word, its work in the 1960s under Taylor and his replacement (Taylor left for Verve in 1962), Bob Thiele, helped forge the free jazz movement. The label offered the kind of artistic freedom necessary to explore jazz’s frontiers, and as it accumulated releases, Impulse! became a label whose records you could buy unheard, based solely on the Impulse! logo and design.

Like competitor Blue Note, Impulse’s albums all shared aesthetic elements: a vivid orange-and-black color scheme on shiny laminated gatefold covers (tailor-made for rolling joints). Designers hired some of New York’s best photographers, Bob Gomel, Arnold Newman, Ted Russell and Pete Turner among them, to shoot the label’s artists.

The result was a body of work that sparked a revolution, both musically and visually. Below, some of Impulse’s most framable work.

Alice Coltrane – A Monastic Trio (1968)

Design: Robert & Barbara Flynn

Photographer: Charles Stewart

Archie Shepp – The Magic of Ju-Ju (1968)

Painted skull artwork: Alan Winston

Design: Robert & Barbara Flynn

Photography: William A. Levy and Frank Kofsky

Gil Evans – Out of the Cool (1961)

Cover design: Bob Flynn

Photographer: Arnold Newman

John Coltrane – Transition (1970)

Cover design: George Whiteman

Photographer: Chuck Stewart

Albert Ayler – Love Cry (1968)

Design: Robert & Barbara Flynn

Photographer: Charles Stewart

Elvin Jones and Richard Davis – Heavy Sounds (1967)

Design: Robert & Barbara Flynn

Photographer: Charles Stewart

Pharoah Sanders – Karma (1969)

Design: Robert & Barbara Flynn

Photographer: Charles Stewart

John Lee Hooker – It Serves You Right to Suffer (1966)

Design: Robert Flynn

Photographer: Ray Ross

Shirley Scott Trio – Great Scott!! (1964)

Design: Joe Lebow

Photographer: Charles Stewart

Johnny Hartman – I Just Dropped by to Say Hello (1964)

Design: Robert Flynn

Photography: Charles Stewart