While writing about the passing of Grammy winning arranger and conductor Don Sebesky, I took a brief look at his 1975 album for CTI – “The Rape Of El Morro”. Aside from the potential narrative involved with the use of the word “rape” in the title track of the album, I’d always wondered about the dark, brooding image that is used for the album cover taken by Alan Kaplan.
As I later discovered, the pictures used to illustrate the front and back of the gatefold sleeve were used in almost the opposite way the photographer had intended. On top of that, the album’s title, combined with the images, landed it squarely on the radar of one of the most successful women’s rights campaigns of the seventies.
The Album
In the ’60s and ’70s, Don Sebesky’s jazz orchestrations at CTI Records fused classical and jazz elements to create lush, popular music soundscapes. His album “Giant Box” showcased his masterful arranging skills and influence, which reached beyond jazz into Broadway and film. The album “El Morro” took a more eclectic approach, featuring two upbeat tracks, “The Entertainer” and “Skyliner,” both of which became favorites in dance and disco clubs, particularly in London.
As a sometime apprentice photographer in 1973-74 at the Hemel Hempstead Gazette, I was especially drawn to the CTI and KUDU covers, not least this one.
The cover pictures, seen left above, were taken by New York photographer Alan Kaplan. The picture of Don Sebesky, right, was inside the gatefold sleeve and taken by another NY photographer, Alen MacWeeney [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alen_MacWeeney I have also spoken to MacWeeney and plan to publish a post on Alen and his work this summer.
Kaplan, much to my surprise, when I talked to him in 2023, said that he did not get asked for permission to use the pictures. He was living and working in Paris and Rome at the time the album was released. Kaplan also noted that he didn’t get paid for the cover. Kaplan was also adamant that his work was not available through the stock image catalogs of the time [2]I covered these in my post about Pete Turner – In the era before the Internet and Getty Images there were stock image catalogs … Continue reading. So it remains a mystery both how CTI acquired the picture and why they chose to use it.
The pictures come from a studio set envisioned and designed by Alan Kaplan, with the resulting portfolio name “A Study In Grey – The Dull Life of Women,” which included both still photographs and a short film. The film earned Alan a silver cup at the Cannes Film Festival [3]https://www.aharts.org/alankaplan. His documentary films about Pride, primate conservation, and beauty in traditional African societies have earned additional critical acclaim.
Alan and I talked a few times, he also sent me a prodigious number of emails and pictures of his work. Sadly, Alan passed away in March 2024 [4]I will be publishing a tribute post about Alan soon.
Having discussed with Alan Kaplan, I reached out to then art director Richard Mantel in early 2025. Richard said during a telephone call that his short period at CTI wasn’t his best. He said he would mostly get a folder of notes, track listings, credits, title and photographs and his job was to assemble the cover. Richard had no recollection of discussions or instructions around the “El Morro” album, nor where the pictures had been sourced from.
Richard Mantel would go on to win a Grammy for his cover for the Theloneus Monk album “Underground” [5]https://www.discogs.com/master/120750-Thelonious-Monk-Underground at the 11th Grammy awards. He spent time as an art director for Columbia Records, Atlantic Records, and Epic Records [6]https://www.behance.net/gallery/20447123/CDRecord-Covers. Richard was also part of “Push Pin Studios” with Seymour Chwast and some of their work is included in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) [7]https://www.moma.org/artists/8299-richard-mantel.
I’d always been reluctant to reach out to Bob Ciano. Bob, both before and after his time working with Creed, had been very influential in the design field, in design style, and in design education. We exchanged emails, and I even doubled back to Bob yesterday, and he replied in a timely fashion that “I have no idea… album titles were usually dreamed up by Creed Taylor and the particular artist… As for the image, I, like Richard Mantel, have no idea where we found it… sorry to have so little information about the cover.”
Sebesky would go on to record the title track again in 1977, dropping “The Rape Of” and calling the track just “El Morro.” The track appears in various takes on the Chet Baker album releases of “You Can’t Go Home Again” [8]https://www.discogs.com/master/255344-Chet-Baker-You-Cant-Go-Home-Again. As it turns out, this would be entirely wise.
Context
The whole story of the name and cover of the album is much more obscure than I could have imagined. Given that both Sebesky and Creed Taylor are no longer with us, the chances of coming to a conclusion about it become harder as time goes by.
I’d literally spent months searching, browsing, and speed-reading all the books, documents, newspaper articles, and film synopses that I could find that dealt with one of the major El Morro locations. Apart from an infamous Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca (El Morro) jail in Cuba; a National Monument in New Mexico; a historic gold mine in South America; there is El Morro fortress in the San Juan harbor in Puerto Rico. There is also a park by the sea in California, and more than one cinema that bore the name. I even went through lists of operas. Nothing.
Cultural Context
With the 1970s in full swing, travel and the opening up of historic sites in both Cuba and Puerto Rico were the likely candidates.
In January 1974, many syndicated newspapers, including the New York/Long Island Newsday, ran a full-page feature by travel writer Abby Rand [9]Ms. Rand is the author of several guidebooks, including ‘Abby Rand’s Guide to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands’ who wrote a piece headlined “Romping On A 36 by 111 Mile Playground.” It included a picture of children that was captioned “The fortress El Morro, never breached in war, is besieged by youngsters.”[10]Newsday – Sunday, January 27th, 1974 – Pg 32.
By the mid-1970’s, Puerto Rico had become a standard cruise ship stopover for Cunard – “El Morro” featured in their advertisements. Old San Juan would also feature regularly on TV travel segments on daytime TV shows. NBC spent a whole week there with the “Today” show. Numerous films used it as a location, including the 1963 film Thunder Island, a storyline about the contract assignation of a dictator in the Caribbean.
The word “Morro” is derived from the Spanish language and carries the meaning of “promontory” or “headland.” A promontory refers to a raised area of land that extends out into a body of water, such as a lake or ocean. Similarly, a headland is a coastal feature characterized by a high point of land jutting out into the sea, offering breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape.
Cuba
1975 was, as it is today, a difficult year for the country and island of Cuba. Many syndicated US Newspapers in early May that year carried reports of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, I picked the Gannett Group – Putnam County “Reporter Dispatch” May 8th issue to highlight here.
The front page of the newspaper carried a callout box for the Thursday edition highlighting what could be found inside. An article in section-C about Castro and Cuba and an article in the lifestyle section, section-B “Talking About Rape”.
The article on the front page of section C1 was headed “Castro asks U.S. friendship”
HAVANA. Cuba • AP Fidel Castro has strongly urged Washington to ease its trade embargo with Cuba, denied any Cuban role in the assassination of John F Kennedy and charged that the CIA was behind a number of attempts on his own life.
Page C1 – Gannett Group – Putnam County “Reporter Dispatch” May 8th, 1975
But looking into American television cameras. Castro pointedly said in English. “We wish friendship We belong to two different worlds but we are neighbors One way or another we owe it to ourselves to live in peace ”
Page-C6 carried a full page photo-essay “Today’s Cuba” by Charles Tasnadi [11]https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/ap-photographer-charles-tasnadi-dies,125877 to mark Cuba’s 15th anniversary under Fidel Castro. The picture top-left of the eight pictures carried the title in white was captioned “Runner On Havana’s “Malecon” [12]Located in Havana, the Malecon is a nearly 5-mile long promenade, seawall, and pavement. The Malecon was originally built in the early 1900s to protect Havana from stormy seas and high tides. … Continue reading – El Morro light tower is at rear”.
That said, there were no rapes directly documented with any of the known El Morro’s at that time. Certainly nothing that might have been relevant in 1975.
Rape
Culturally, rape was everywhere in 1975. In just the “Reporter Dispatch” from May 8th there was the article featured on the front page in Section-B – “Rape squad supervisor gives message to ORT” an article by Helen G. Shapiro about a talk given to the New Rochelle Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT); Page-5 had an article about a Judge who would no longer accept a guilty plea from accused rapists after criticism of a recent sentence that allowed a 3x guilty rapist to apply for parole in “little over two years”; Page-19 carried the description of what the paper described as a “ruse” that gives the caller enough information to know if the woman was alone and where she was by impersonating a police officer.
A groundbreaking feminist book was also published in 1975, Susan Brownmiller’s “Against Our Will – Men, Women and Rape” [13]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/18/susan-brownmiller-against-our-will-interview-metoo. Brownmiller was a journalist at the Village Voice in New York. I admit, I hadn’t heard about her book and reading it was a somber experience, all 448 pages. [14]Susan Brownmiller: “Against Our Will – Men, Women and Rape” – ISBN: 0-449-90820-8 – Published by Ballantine Books.
In the movies, the seventies had opened at least in the UK with two blockbuster films that both contained scenes of rape. The first, Straw Dogs (1971 film), a psychological thriller directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George; also in 1971, “A Clockwork Orange” [15]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film) – a dystopian crime film written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel.
Perhaps more importantly in the USA, before Sebesky’s album was even recorded, the 1974 film “Death Wish” had been released [16]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Wish_(1974_film). The film, which featured Charles Bronson, became the launching point for a somewhat repetitive yet – one of the most controversial vigilante franchises in American cinema. At its core, it’s a story about grief, fear, and the seductive pull of retributive violence but it also became a cultural lightning rod in the 1970s, when U.S. cities were experiencing rising crime and public anxiety.
Bronson’s character, Paul Kersey, a mild‑mannered New York architect whose life collapses after a brutal home invasion in which his wife is murdered and his daughter is raped. This trauma pushes him into becoming a nighttime vigilante who hunts street criminals.
In her book, Susan Brownmiller noted “A Clockwork Orange was no aberration among movies during its box-office season. Hitchcock’s “Frenzy”, Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” and a Robert Mitchum vehicle, “Going Home”, were also notable for their glamorization of rape. There is nothing I can say about Frenzy that was not perceived with great sensitivity by Victoria Sullivan writing in The New York Times Sunday entertainment section. The underlying message of Frenzy, she wrote, is that “psychopathic rapists are basically nice guys screwed up by their mums”.
Unsurprisingly, in 1977, Brownmiller was central to a years long campaign by the National Organization For Women and Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW). The organization had held a rally at the foot of a giant billboard in Hollywood advertising the Kiss album “Love Gun” which shows women, writhing at the feet of the band. The campaign directly targeted album covers and music advertising that depicted women as beaten, bound, sexualized, or otherwise objectified, and they organized boycotts, protests, slide‑show lectures, and national pressure campaigns to force record labels to change their practices.
The WAWAV produced a “Checklist Of Abusive Album Covers” [17]https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz00176n94, it included a number of jazz album covers, including Eric Gale’s “Ginseng Woman” [18]https://www.discogs.com/master/84865-Eric-Gale-Ginseng-Woman, Willis Jackson’s “Play’s With Feeling” [19]https://www.discogs.com/master/454341-Willis-Jackson-Plays-With-Feeling, Jack McDuff’s “Sophisticated Funk” [20]https://www.discogs.com/master/157060-Jack-McDuff-Sophisticated-Funk and others including a disco, pop and rock albums.
That Sebesky’s “Rape Of El Morro” was on the list was unsurprising, given the title and the picture, but in my follow-up post about photographer Alan Kaplan, the use of the picture definitely wasn’t what Kaplan had in mind when he set it up. About the same time, I was still living at home with my parents; probably my favorite album at the time was also on the list: the Average White Band’s 1974 “AWB.” I was so into the album that I painted the logo from the cover onto the wall of my bedroom.
Concluding Hypothesis
I’d love to hear the actual story, or even some facts that would help me understand what the backstory to the track and album title is. Until that day happens though, my hypothesis is simply that “The Rape of El Morro” is a metaphorical rape.
It is possible that it in fact refers to Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban outspoken critic of Fidel Castro. Arenas brought worldwide attention to Cuba’s historic repression of gays. In 1974, he was sent to prison after being charged and convicted of “ideological deviation” and for publishing abroad without official consent. Arenas was imprisoned at the notorious El Morro Castle alongside murderers and rapists [21]“‘Before Night Falls’: Reinaldo Arenas breaks down (in) Fidel Castro’s Cuba”. Mail & Guardian – a film adapted from Arenas posthumous autobiography Antes que … Continue reading [22]https://mg.co.za/friday/2020-10-22-before-night-falls-reinaldo-arenas-breaks-down-in-fidel-castro-s-cuba/.
If not that, then it does not appear to refer to a sexual assault. It could refer to the military “rape” (i.e., violent assault/overrun) of the El Morro fortress in Havana, Cuba, a site historically besieged, bombarded, and captured multiple times. The title instead used “rape” in the older, now‑archaic military sense: the storming, violation, or forcible taking of a fortress.
This fits in with Leonard Feather’s liner notes which note the album was going to be called “Spanish Blood”.
To come almost full circle, in the Village Voice January 12th, 1976 – Gary Giddins writing the Weather Bird: Looking Backward 1975 – ostentatiously a music awards column, wrote: A key to Susan Brownmiller’s Apartment: Don Sebesky, the conclusion to whose “The Rape Of El Morro” (CTI) seems to say, “They really love it no matter how hard they scream.”
References
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Based on the military drums at the start of the track and the Spanish pasodoble-inspired parts later on, I think the composition evokes the siege of Havana by the British in 1762, or something similar. The female vocals, which remind me of the stuff Linda Sharrock was doing at the time, suggest some kind of imaginary rape of women happening, a Cuban version of the rape of the Sabines. It’s conjecture, but it makes sense for a Spanish-tinged war-evoking tune to be named after the Morro. Given the rest of the tracks, I bet they simply named the album after the song.
Having been forever looking at this, you are likely as much right as I am. It was a lot of fun research and learning about the US in the 1970’s. Thanks for the comment David!
It’s funny how the feminists made a big stink about this album cover, yet they ignore the misogynistic lyrics and behaviour of rap ‘artists’. P-Diddy just got another few months taken off his prison term; are they protesting that?
Great article as usual.
BTW, have you read “Bass Notes” by Chuck Israels? He talks about how Helen Keane arranged a lucrative deal for Bill Evans
with Verve with CT producing. The first thing CT did was to release “Trio 64”,a Bill Evans album. Israels was the bass player with the Evans trio at the time and he wasn’t notified by Evans, Keane, or Creed that he had just been replaced! He thinks that they figured that the trio with Scott La Faro was the most popular of Evans’ work, and that using Peacock was the next best thing to using the late La Faro because of their virtuosity, which Israels lacked.
He accepted his un-notified firing and immediately got a gig with Stan Getz.
After a while with Getz, Israels got a call from Bill Evans saying that things weren’t working out with Peacock and would he consider coming back to work for him.
CT is also mentioned later in the book when Israels finds that his bass solo was edited out of the recording of “Who Can I Turn To” on the Bill Evans album “Trio 65”.
He later says, “Creed Taylor wasn’t a villain. He’d done a lot of good for some fine musicians and produced a lot of excellent jazz recordings”
But then he says that a lot of CTI records don’t stand up to the large ensemble recordings of Gil Evans, Oliver and Duke Ellington because the run-of-the-mill Creed Taylor productions lack the level of development in the writing for the band, and the chances for interplay in the rhythm section.
Israels goes after many of the people he worked with, so CT is not a special case.
Stephen, thanks for reading.
I have not read and do not have a copy of Chuck Israel’s book. I jumped on my local library website and ordered an inter-library loan from the University of Northern Colorado where they have a great jazz program. Thanks for the recommendation.
Creed had very definite ideas of the results he wanted from a studio session, his use of overdubbing and multitracking goes back to 1957, way before Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, which came before Evans “Conversations”. If Creed didn’t get what he wanted from a session, he’d overdub and re-record as Chuck and many people found out. Personally I’m amazed Creed overdubbed the CTI All-Stars live concerts, but here we are.
I have a few thoughts on you observation about rap music and protests. First, it happened – I remember distinctly a a coalition of womens groups holding rallies and protests that resulted in Radio City Music Hall cancelling “The Chronic Tour” arguably the biggest rap show of 1993.
Also, at least in the period here, hip-hop was only just getting started. The dayI posted this, I sat down in the evening to watch a documentary about Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. It wasn’t my era, I knew very little, it was a great watch though.
Another thing that has been killed by the Internet is effective organization. Over the past two years the “No Kings” rallies have been publicized through social media, but mostly everything else seems to just generate “likes” and “subscribes” which really are not enough. Some of the corporate boycotts have been somewhat effective, Target for example, but not in a way that they would have been in the old days with people walking up and down outside with banners and placards. Silently unsubscribing from the New York Times, or not renewing Amazon Prime really has little to no effect by comparison.
++Mark.