CODA
A Preview of Columbia Masterworks
James [Jim] Flora [Designer]
James [Jim] Flora [Designer], Paul Affelder [Editor]: CODA [A Preview of Columbia Masterworks]. [New York: Columbia Records] February 1945. Slim 12mo. Thick stapled wrappers letterpressed in two colors. 24 pp. 18 2-color text illustrations by James Flora as well as cover and back cover illustrations. Uncoated wrappers lightly toned, otherwise a fine fresh copy.
5.375 x 8.125 stapled booklet with 24 pages and a total of 20 illustrations by Jim Flora printed in black and purple. "When James Flora was promoted to Art Director at Columbia Records in 1943, one of his first innovations was a monthly new-release booklet called Coda, highlighting the label's latest classical, jazz and pop releases. Coda was illustrated -- front cover to back -- by Flora. "I took 'em home and did them," he explained in a 1998 interview. "This was my fancy and I wasn't going to let anyone else do it."[Erwin Chusid]
“Flora's illustrations have that almost impossible-to-attain quality that commercial work rarely has: his drawings and designs are still interesting and lively today.” -- Chris Ware
"In 1943, four years out of the Cincinnati Art Academy, and one year after docking on the east coast, Jim Flora was named Art Director of Columbia Records. His boss, Alex Steinweiss had enlisted in the Navy. One of Flora's first directorial fiats was to launch Coda, a monthly new release booklet. Along with catalog details on fresh Columbia platters, Coda contained artist profiles, historical vignettes, and -- most pertinent -- an abundance of Flora visual chicanery.
"Coda ran from 1943 to 1945, after which it was replaced by The Disc Digest. By then, Flora had been promoted to Advertising Manager, and later to Sales Promotion Manager, positions which afforded him little opportunity to draw. This was a source of creative frustration; Flora was not born to be a bureaucrat.
"In 1950, having reached his limit of what he called "endless meetings, endless memos, and wrestling with budgets," he resigned, and "bitten by the bug of wanderlust," drove to Mexico with his family in a Hudson sedan. They lived south of the border for a year and a half, mostly in Taxco, amid what he called "picturesque ruins."
"After his return to the U.S. in 1951, Flora embarked upon a freelance career in commercial design. One early client was his former employer, Columbia, who hired him to revive and illustrate Coda. A fish-eyed, sax-wailing St. Nick graced the cover of the December 1952 edition. The following year, Flora began designing LP covers for RCA Victor. The Santa handing out those plum assignments was RCA AD Robert M. Jones -- the man who had replaced Flora as Columbia AD in 1945." [Leif Peng]