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Al Cohn

Cohn was initially known for playing in Woody Herman's Second Herd as one of the Four Brothers, along with Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Serge Chaloff. Unlike his the better known tenors Sims and Getz, Cohn contributed arrangements to the Herman band. After leaving the Herman group Cohn went on to play with a variety of other musicians but his most well known association was with Zoot Sims whom he co-led a quintet starting in 1956. They continued to play together sporadically until the death of Sims. The high point of their recorded output can be found on "You 'n' Me" which was released on Mercury Records in 1960.

In addition to his work as a jazz tenor saxophonist, Al Cohn wrote arrangements for the Broadway productions of "Raisin" and "Sophisticated Ladies".

His son Joe Cohn is a talented guitarist.

Cohn died in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

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Multiple Reviews

La Elemental Music ristampa il catalogo della Xanadu Records

Read "La Elemental Music ristampa il catalogo della Xanadu Records" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo


Grazie a produttori illuminati come Don Schlitten, il jazz degli anni Settanta ebbe modo di sottrarsi alle facili contaminazioni del rock o bossa nova. Il catalogo della sua label indipendente, la Xanadu, testimonia la capacità di attrarre con rispetto della tradizione il nuovo pubblico del jazz, riservando ampio spazio ai cosiddetti musician's musicians: artisti di culto per colleghi e addetti ai lavori, ma poco noti al grande pubblico. La riedizione di queste gemme da parte della Elemental, tutte concentrate tra ...

515
Album Review

Al Cohn: Four Classic Albums Plus

Read "Four Classic Albums Plus" reviewed by David Rickert


Saxophonist/clarinetist Al Cohn could have spent his life as either an arranger or a player, but fortunately he chose to do both, creating a series of records that weren't classics, but nevertheless reached the sublime and poetic elements of jazz. In this collection of four sessions, one is an orchestral session from the fifties, with charts by Cohn; the others are from partnerships, where Cohn tended to do his best work: one from his celebrated collaborations with Zoot Sims; and ...

367
Album Review

Al Cohn: We Remember You

Read "We Remember You" reviewed by Johnny Wills


Al Cohn was a tenor saxophonist from New York, born in 1925. Sadly he died in 1988, but his performance at the 1986 Oslo Jazz Festival in Norway is documented on this live recording. On this session Cohn teams up with Totti Bergh also on tenor sax, bringing back memories of his many famous past partnerships with Zoot Sims. The first track introduces the female vocalist Laila Dalseth on the Gershwin ballard “Someone To Watch Over Me," ...

295
Album Review

Al Cohn & Zoot Sims: Easy As Pie

Read "Easy As Pie" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Once again, Label M mines the vast resources of jazz performances that Baltimore's Left Bank Jazz Society sagaciously recorded, knowing that they were hearing unparalleled music in their midst but not knowing that it would entertain jazz listeners thirty-plus years hence. It seems that the Left Bank group was at its best when it recorded horns, and particularly saxophonists. Even on Easy As Pie, Dave Frishberg's piano lacks clarity due to the on-site instrument's limitations. Unfortunately, the same problem occurred ...

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1

Music Industry

Al Cohn and Joe Newman: Swinging Sessions

Al Cohn and Joe Newman: Swinging Sessions

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Great jazz in the 1950s has always been a product of happy partnerships. Among these unions was the year-long recording collaboration between tenor saxophonist Al Cohn and trumpeter Joe Newman. Between December 1954 and December 1955, Cohn and Newman recorded on six albums together. These recordings were Cohn's Mr. Music and The Natural Seven; Newman's All I Wanna Do Is Swing and I'm Still Swinging; The Jazz Workshop's Four Brass, One Tenor; and Freddie Green's Mr. Rhythm. In total, there wasn't a ...

1

Recording

Al Cohn and Dexter Gordon

Al Cohn and Dexter Gordon

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Tenor saxophone giants Al Cohn and Dexter Gordon recorded together only once—on Oct. 22, 1976, for the Xanadu label. The result of the lengthy New York session were two albums—True Blue and Silver Blue. Cohn was recording regularly for Xanadu at the time and Gordon had only recently relocated to the States after spending 14 years living in Europe. These recordings preceded Gordon's lengthy relationship with Columbia, which began with his live album for the label two months later—the aptly ...

2

Recording

Al Cohn: Rifftide, June 1986

Al Cohn: Rifftide, June 1986

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

A year and a half before Al Cohn's death of liver cancer in Feb. 1988, the tenor saxophonist was on tour in Europe. In June 1986, he was in Monster, the Netherlands, recording Rifftide with Dutch jazz musicians Rein de Graaff (p) Koos Serierse (b) Eric Ineke (d) at Studio 44 for the Timelss label. It's one of the finest albums of Cohn's late period and a document that marvelously illustrates what made Cohn special. Cohn was a powerful post-war ...

115

Festival

Zoot Fest 2011: Honoring Zoot Sims and Al Cohn

Source: Richard E. Chamberlain, Jr.

Honoring Zoot Sims and Al Cohn and remembering the NYC Jazz Loft of photographer W. Eugene Smith FEATURING: AUTHOR SAM STEPHENSON, PHIL WOODS, BOB DOROUGH, BILL CROW, LEW TABACKIN, RONNIE FREE, BILL GOODWIN, COTA FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA, HOD O'BRIEN & SURPRISE GUESTS Sunday November 13, 2011 from 12 Noon to 6 p.m. in the Keystone Room, East Stroudsburg University, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 Join us for a relaxed afternoon of music, mirth and memories as we salute Zoot Sims, Al Cohn ...

162

Music Industry

The Al Cohn Collection

The Al Cohn Collection

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

The Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania in the northeast United States are home to musicians who like peace and quiet but must be near New York City and Philadelphia, where the work is. The Delaware Water Gap area of the Poconos has become famous in jazz circles for residents including Phil Woods, Bob Dorough, David Liebman, John Coates, Jr., Bill Goodwin, Steve Gilmore and Hal Galper, and for the Deer Head Inn, the region's jazz headquarters. It was at the Deer ...

Len Pierro
saxophone

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Four Classic Albums...

Avid Records UK
2011

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Complete Original...

Audio Fidelity
2007

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Folk Jazz U.S.A. /...

Fresh Sound Records
2007

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We Remeber You

Gemini Records
2003

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We Remember You

Gemini Records
2003

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Easy As Pie

Label M
2001

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