Paul Bacon

Paul Bacon (December 25, 1923 – June 8, 2015) was an American book and album cover designer and jazz musician. He is known for introducing the "Big Book Look" in book jacket design, and designed about 6,500 jackets and more than 200 jazz record covers.

Personal life Paul Bacon was born December 25, 1923, in Ossining, New York. Bacon's family lived in many places in the New York City area while he was growing up due to economic hardships caused by the Great Depression. The family settled in Newark, New Jersey, in 1939, where Bacon graduated from Newark Arts High School in 1940. Bacon's introduction to jazz was through the radio. "My brother and I realized we were jazz fans after hearing Benny Goodman on the Camel Caravan show in 1935,"

After high school, Bacon took a design job with Scheck Advertising, a small ad agency in Newark. He was drafted in 1943 and joined the Marine Corps. With the Marines he was sent to Guadalcanal, Guam, and China, never seeing any action.

Design career Bacon's design career got its start with drawings for small magazines such as The Newark Hot Club's Jazz Notes and Bob Thiele's Jazz before he was drafted into the Marines.

In the early 1950s, Bacon was commissioned by Tom Bevans, the art director of Simon & Schuster, to design a number of titles. Commissions from other houses came in as well, and Bacon opened his own studio in 1955. He continued to have a series of studios with his name on the door for over 50 years. He has performed in Japan, Australia, New England, and on many jazz cruises, booked by Hank O'Neil and Shelley Shier's agency, HOSS. He put out two albums, "Swing Me A Song" (1996) and "Things Are Looking Up" (2002), both from Jazzology.

Works Bacon's design for the first printing of Portnoy's Complaint (1969), by Philip Roth, an example of his "Big Book Look" style.

Notable book jackets

Compulsion by Meyer Levin, Simon & Schuster (1956) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Simon & Schuster (1961) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, Viking (1962, 1990) Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young, Scribner's (1965) Jaws by Peter Benchley, Doubleday (1974) The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron, Random House (1966, 1967) Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, Random House (1967) Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Dell Pub. Co. (1968) Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth, Random House (1969) Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon, Alfred A. Knopf (1973) Harlequin (novel) by Morris West, William Morrow & Company, Inc. (1974) Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, Random House, Inc. (1974, 1975) Shōgun by James Clavell, Atheneum (1975) The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro, Alfred A. Knopf (1974)

Notable album covers

Thelonious Monk: Genius of Modern Music: Blue Note (1947) The Amazing Bud Powell: Blue Note (1951) Fats Navarro: Memorial Album: Blue Note (1947) James Moody and His Modernists: Blue Note (1948) Milt Jackson: Wizard of the Vibes: Blue Note (1952)

Discography Swing Me A Song: Jazzology (1996) Things Are Looking Up: Jazzology (2002)

Essays "The High Priest of Be-bop." In The Thelonious Monk Reader, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 56–62.