Duke Ellington’s Shakespearian masterpiece, Such Sweet Thunder, is the first album I bought for its typography alone. I had heard older releases by him, had classic discs like Money Jungle, but this album caught my eye because I had had a deep interest in typography around 1994-1995. The text on the right was so crisp despite its size, and of course the iconic photo of Duke meditating on the piano with big block capital letters made the album look more like an artifact. The music is, of course, sumptuous, but if you have a Spotify account, you can enjoy it for yourself.
