Modernism and Record Covers: Raising the Status of Jazz in Sweden

Abstract

By introducing a wider understanding of the discourse of modernism at the time that record covers were introduced, this article investigates record covers as a means through which various actors in the Swedish jazz scene connected jazz with modernist art forms. In the 1950s, specific designs for record sleeves became integrated into the ways in which jazz was mediated in Sweden, which coincided with wider debates about whether jazz could be seen as an art form. The main question of this article is: How did the artwork on record covers influence the acceptance of jazz as an art form in Sweden? In responding to this question, the article aims to demonstrate that, in addition to written discourse, visual objects – in this case record covers – were of great importance to the rising status of jazz in Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s. More broadly, I argue that the visual elements in music cultures can be just as important, if not more so, than written forms of discourse, for negotiating the social status of music.