FBC hosts presentation on jazz LP cover art

This weekend, the staff at Flat, Black & Circular will mine their vinyl crates in search of iconic jazz LP covert art. The reason? Michigan-based jazz expert Mike Johnston leads a deep-dive presentation dubbed “A Look at Jazz LP Cover Artwork: 1948-1975.” The event is free and will happen next door to FBC at the Spartan Housing Cooperative. 

Attendees can expect informed explanations of innovative covers printed by legendary jazz record labels such as Blue Note, Impulse! and El Saturn. Johnston will also dissect the works of groundbreaking artists like Andy Warhol, Reid Miles, Mati Klarwein and Robert Thompson. Of course, he will also wax philosophical about the relationships between cover artwork and artists’ music.  

As for Johnston, the longtime Michigan jazz scene fixture is the host of “Destination Out,” which airs each Sunday at 11 p.m. on WCMU, Central Michigan University’s radio station. Johnston is a community volunteer who first started at WCMU in 1987.  

The Traverse City native, who holds an MFA degree in art and photography, also teaches music history courses at Delta College and Mid-Michigan Community College. Outside the classroom, he’s also contributed insightful articles to various music publications, including a stint at Coda Magazine from 1981 to 1999. 

When he’s not playing music over the airwaves or lecturing on it, he’s performing it.  Johnston is a founding member of The Northwoods Improvisers — a role he has held for 46 years. He plays bass, wood flutes, and percussion in the long-running Michigan group. For years, the band collaborated and recorded with the late saxophonist Faruq Z. Bey (1942-2012), whom AllMusic Guide hailed “one of the visionaries of Detroit’s modern jazz scene.”  

Northwoods Improvisers first came together in 1976 in rural Mid-Michigan and initially played electro-acoustic improvised music. The group switched gears around 1980 to all-acoustic instrumentation — a style they have stuck to ever since. Along with Johnston, Mike Gilmore was also a founding member of the ensemble. Nick Ashton joined in 1986, and soon after the collective began issuing homemade cassette tapes of their dynamic live performances. 

In 1994, the Northwoods issued its first properly released recording, “Fog and Fire,” via Trevor Watts’ Arc label. While it was distributed by a legit, U.K.-based imprint, like the outfit’s past albums, the music on the release is all live, all acoustic and all recorded in one night. 

The band explained in the album’s liner notes: “Our music is a blend of Eastern music, jazz and collective improvising.” It’s not surprising that the cover art for “Fog and Fire” was done by Johnston himself. He also created covers for a stack of their later albums. Johnston practices what he preaches.