Here’s another of our promised blog features on Downbeat’s 2017 gifts-of-the-season recommendations.
“Tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson (1924-2005) worked in some of the most famous jazz orchestras of the 1940s and early '50s, playing in big bands led by such swing icons as Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton and Count Basie. He was one of the first African Americans in Boyd Raeburn's legendary orchestra. Thompson often found himself on the bandstand situated in proximity to such future giants as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Leo Parker and many more. According to jazz critics of the time, Thompson was in the same league as these extraordinary gentlemen, garnering comparisons to modern jazz pioneers such as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young in the pages of publications like DownBeat and Esquire.
But the intriguing thing about Thompson was that he clearly didn't suffer fools gladly. His quickness to call out club owners or music industry executives who did him wrong earned him a reputation for being difficult, costing him gigs both at clubs and in the studio.
Tired of petty politics, Thompson relocated to Paris in 1956, where he would spend the remainder of the decade honing his craft in the small-band format with some of the hottest players in French jazz. He frequently collaborated with pianist Martial Solal, and he worked with a rotating combo consisting of such young Parisian lions as guitarist Jean-Pierre Sasson, bassist Benoit Quersin and drummer Gerard "Dave" Pochonet. He also shared the bandstand with fellow American expats, like trumpeter Emmett Berry, drummer Kenny Clarke and pianist Sammy Price.
Recorded in mono, the four-disc set Complete Parisian Small Group Sessions 1956-1959 - Fresh Sound Records; www.freshsoundrecords.com - documents Thompson's transition from a blacklisted freelance musician in the States to one of the most respected and in-demand leaders on the Parisian scene. His work in the quartet and quintet formats allowed him to explore the feather-light intimacies of melody, rhythm and texture, expressing himself in a way that would have been difficult, if not impossible, in a big band.
For fans who prefer to hear Thompson in the throes of a large ensemble, there's a companion disc, Lucky Thompson In Paris 1956 (Fresh Sound Records), which shines a light on the saxophonist's All Star Orchestra Sessions. On the first of these sessions, Thompson joined the 10-piece Modern Jazz Group to play five compositions written by pianist Henri Renaud (including "Meet Quincy Jones") and arranged to highlight the newly arrived saxophonist. For the remaining three sessions, Thompson and Pochonet co-led medium-sized all-star groups that played originals like Sasson's "Portrait Of Django" and Thompson's "Still Waters," as well as an arrangement of Count Basie and Neal Hefti's "Bluebeard Blues."
The pleasures of hearing this unsung tenor master overcome the dogma of his homeland and reinvent his legacy as a leader makes these reissues a revelation, especially if you are a fan of the embryonic stage of modern jazz.
Moreover, Thompson's life story illustrates a vitally important lesson: If you are true to yourself and to your beliefs, despite the forces of oppression in your vicinity, you might find another place in this world where behavior once perceived as difficult is considered dynamic.”
Downbeat annually does its readers the service of reviewing suggested books, recordings and photography compilations that would make wonderful gifts-of-the-season for family and friends.
This year there are a number recommendations that are so special that I wanted to make it a point to bring them to your attention in the event that you don’t take the magazine. I will do this in successive postings on Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald, Buddy Rich, Lucky Thompson and Jean-Pierre Leloir.
An additional benefit are the well-written annotations that accompany these gift suggestions by some of Downbeat’s fine writers.
Let’s begin with the recommendations for”Pops” or, if you must, Louis Armstrong, and “Mama Jazz,” the adoring nickname her Italian fans have given to the one-and-only Ella Fitzgerald.
“Glorious Gifts for Ella’s Centennial” - John McDonough
“Every fall, record labels release lavish, extravagant box sets that few of us would buy for ourselves but that cause us to make imperial proclamations of our generosity toward others during the holidays. If you feel generous and wish to emphasize your own good taste as well, check out the lineup below. Why? Because very few Baby Boomers — or their offspring and maybe even their offspring — would not delight in getting a new Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong collection this holiday season. The gift of Ella's music is a fine way to salute the immortal "First Lady of Song" as her centennial year comes to a close.
In hindsight, it's surprising that Fitzgerald (1917-'96) didn't collaborate with Armstrong (1901-'71) sooner in her career. You'd think they would have found each other quickly. Each had recorded for Decca for a full decade, but their paths didn't cross until January 1946. It might have been the beginning of a productive musical friendship, except that their first session together would be Armstrong's last for Decca for three-and-a-half years. That accounts for the cutoff date on The Complete Decca Singles 1935-1946 (Verve Records/UMe; ume. Ink.to/louiscompletedecca), a digital-only compilation of 136 titles covering Armstrong's most commercially diverse decade, the one that climaxed with his first duet with Fitzgerald.
Armstrong was commercial in a way that fit the Decca model. He was a self-governing sovereign with few musical loyalties. A bandleader in name only, he readily transplanted himself from Luis Russell (his working band) to Jimmy Dorsey to Glen Gray to the Mills Bros, to Lyn Murray — yes, even to Andy lona and his Islanders. (Just imagine Duke Ellington moonlighting with Glenn Miller at Victor or Count Basie with Ish Kabibble at Columbia.)
But Armstrong could breeze through any genre and always be Louis. This collection finds him covering all bases, from humdrum song selections to 18 well-polished re-creations of earlier classics (e.g., "West End Blues"). But this period also generated fresh Armstrong classics that now have permanent pedestals in the canon: "Struttin’ With Some Barbecue," "Swing That Music," "Jubilee" and more, all of which catch the sound of his trumpet at its mature height.
If you'd prefer to wrap an actual box to put under the Christmas tree (rather than a digital gift), the procession begins with the four-disc set Ella Fitzgerald And Louis Armstrong-Cheek To Cheek: The Complete Duets (Verve Records/UMe; us.udiscovermusic.com or Amazon). This is most comprehensive Ella-Louis scrapbook ever compiled. With the Decca and Verve catalogs now siblings under the extended Universal Music parent company, all things are possible.
Still, the old contrasts are striking. Decca was trolling for a hit single in the novelty market, while Verve couldn't have cared less. So the first Verve Ella And Louis album startled us with Armstrong's voice and horn presented in a way no one had ever heard before - close-up and cozy. His rusty growl exposed, almost naked and without camouflage or the All-Stars.
Verve executive Norman Granz amplified the intimacy by using only the Oscar Peterson trio with Buddy Rich and 11 leisurely ballads, most new to him. Granz told them to take their time, and they did. For Ella, it was home. For Louis, whose trumpet is laid-back and close to the texts, it was a breakthrough to the core of his artistry. A year later, Ella And Louis Again was recorded in three sessions. It captures the same pillow-talk intimacy, but with a wider range of tempos. "Stompin' At The Savoy" seems to combust spontaneously. All the tune sequences here follow the original LPs.
Five days later they began their magnum opus, the deluxe two-LP Porgy And Bess. If the first duets achieved warmth, this one aimed for grandeur. Russ Garcia's orchestrations swell and shrink with a theatrical flamboyance. Armstrong's horn, soft-spoken before, has as a concert-hall stateliness, though sometimes uncertain of the new terrain. Of the 17 songs only four are actually performed as duets. But among the many Porgy and Bess treatments, this one remains a unique achievement—a splendid rivalry between Gershwin's operatic aspirations and the sui generis imprints of Ella and Louis at their best.
The surprises come on the fourth disc, which gives us a peek into both the fun and frustration of the creative process. Armstrong moves through eight takes on "Bess, Oh Where's My Bess" without nailing it. The issued version ended up being an overdub Louis recorded several months later. There are also several trumpet rehearsals of a piece called "Red Headed Woman," which is not listed in any Armstrong discography. It is actually the instrumental section interpolated into "There's A Boat That's Leavin' Soon For New York."
The crown jewel this season is the six-LP set Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George And Ira Gershwin Song Books (Verve/UMe). Michelangelo carved his monuments in stone. Granz used vinyl. And when he considered something of particular value, he draped it in a luxurious wardrobe of packaging, lest no one misunderstand its consequence.
The Fitzgerald-Gershwin project was perhaps Granz's most enduring achievement. It was an authentic work of art. Uncluttered by commercial intent, the cover art announced itself without a syllable of copy, only a bold French Impressionist face and the imposing signature of Bernard Buffet. Universal has now restored this masterpiece to its original vinyl magnificence and physical presence. Holding one of the shiny, 12-inch discs is like cradling a specimen of Dresden porcelain. Even those without a turntable may covet this limited edition for the sheer privilege of exhibiting an objet d'art. Those who do have one can experience the 53 original recordings with Nelson Riddle as Granz intended, plus a sixth LP of bonus items previously issued on The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books in 1993.
With the Fitzgerald centennial winding down. Universal and others have been busy with smaller monuments as well. Two live discoveries are notable. Ella At Zardi's (Verve/ UMe) will likely create a similar buzz to the singer's Twelve Nights In Hollywood set from 2009. It captures two sets from the night of Feb. 2, 1956, just after the formation of Verve and just before the Cole Porter songbook work began. Timing alone makes it a career landmark, and "Airmail Special," "Bernie's Tune" and a slow "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" add to the musical surprises. She sings "I've Got A Crush On You" to Riddle, who was in the audience.
More for the hardcore fan is Ella Fitzgerald: Live At Chautauqua, Vol. 2 (Dot Time Records; dottimerecords.com), a previously unreleased concert recording made in 1968 at Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater in New York state. The 46-minute set concludes with a historically important tune, "He Had A Dream," a moving tribute to Martin Luther King. (This album, part of Dot Time Records' Legends Series, is a companion to Live At Chautauqua,Vol. I, which was released in 2015.)
For those who prefer a one-stop overview of at least two-thirds of her career, the four-disc set Ella Fitzgerald, 100 Songs For A Centennial (Verve/UMe) provides a 50/50 mix from the Decca and Verve periods that highlights the contrasts between sales-driven Decca years and the high-art plateaus Fitzgerald reached on Verve — although the work she did with pianist Ellis Larkins in 1950 is as complete as anything she produced under Granz.
One of those pieces is part of Someone To Watch Over Me (Verve/UMe), in which several of her more small-scale combo works from the Decca and Verve years are augmented by newly recorded London Symphony Orchestra accompaniments. The original sparse backing leaves plenty of room for the orchestrations to breathe without tripping into any background bottlenecks. Thanks to the magic of digital recording technology, Gregory Porter joins Fitzgerald and Larkins on their 1954 rendition of "People Will Say We're In Love."
It’s only fitting that one of the earliest reviews of Will Friedwald’s new book in a major publication be written by Ted Gioia as I would venture to say that in combination, these two authors have a working knowledge of vocal and instrumental Jazz that is as comprehensive as it gets.
Blues, loves songs, vocalese, pop, Jazz - whatever the style of, broadly speaking, popular music, Will and Ted are a fountain of information.
Equally as important, they tell a story well as each is a gifted-writer whose prose informs, elucidates and entertains.
The following appeared in the November 17, 2017 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
THE GREAT JAZZ AND POP VOCAL ALBUMS
By Will Friedwald
Pantheon, 402 pages, $40
Review: Defining the Canon of ‘The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums’: A great critic’s chronicle of the postwar love affair between jazz and pop.
By Ted Gioia
“The relationship between jazz and pop culture reminds me of one of those turbulent Hollywood marriages. Sometimes it’s exciting, filled with passionate, public embraces. But just as often, there’s a nasty breakup with only indifference or hostility between the former soul mates.
Over the last few years, the jazz-pop relationship has gotten sexy again. If you doubt it, just gaze at the stars and chart their courses. Hip Hopper Kendrick Lamar has opened up a promising dialogue between rap and jazz. David Bowie hired jazz musicians for his last album, “Blackstar,” and created a genuine masterpiece. Bob Dylan started recording Frank Sinatra songs. And then a host of movies (“Whiplash,” “La La Land,” “Born to Be Blue,” “Miles Ahead,” “Nina”) sealed the deal.
Against all odds, jazz has gone mainstream again. It won’t last long — it never does — but enjoy it while you can. This genre blending is creating some of the most exciting music on the current scene.
A few old-timers, however, remember an earlier marriage between jazz and pop. Now that was real sexy — back when Sinatra songs were sung seductively by Sinatra himself, not a Nobel laureate. This first golden age of pop-flavored jazz started around the same time as the birth of the record album, gained momentum during the course of the 1950s and only gradually fell apart in the 1960s. Many listeners believe this period marks the high point of American popular music.
No critic has done a better job of chronicling this post-World War II love affair between jazz and pop than Will Friedwald. I’ve followed his work with interest since the 1980s, first discovering his writing in the Village Voice and then enjoying his seminal 1990 book “Jazz Singing.” In subsequent years, Mr. Friedwald seemed everywhere in the world of jazz-pop vocals. He collaborated with Tony Bennett on the singer’s autobiography, wrote a definitive book on Sinatra and penned countless essays and liner notes on singers famous and otherwise.
In his new book Mr. Friedwald builds on his unique expertise in defining a canon of 56 classic jazz and pop vocal albums. But this is anything but one of those glib “list” books so popular nowadays. Mr. Friedwald digs in deeply in his analysis—almost every album gets more than 5,000 words of attention. Each track is weighed in the balance. In fact, Mr. Friedwald assesses virtually every arranger’s trick, instrumental solo and vocal inflection in his path.
Much of this music is familiar, even overexposed, but Mr. Friedwald has the ability to surprise us, even shock us with his perspectives. He may have already written thousands of pages on jazz and pop singers, but he still wants to make waves, defy the consensus and topple the conventional wisdom.
Just consider the following. Sinatra gets only two albums included in this guide, but Doris Day earns three slots. The rest of the Rat Pack fares even worse. Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. are left out of the canon entirely, but Barb Jungr and Robert Goulet make the cut. And in the strangest twist of all, Mr. Friedwald devotes a long sympathetic essay to Tiny Tim, a mostly forgotten ukulele-playing novelty act who enjoyed the briefest half-life of fame at the end of the 1960s.
In other words, this book wants to provoke you. Mr. Friedwald is looking for an argument. I suspect that, more than anything, he wants to force you to go back to the music itself, listen carefully, and make up your own mind.
This book certainly had that effect on me. I wasn’t always convinced by the author’s advocacy. I don’t see myself ever joining the Tiny Tim fan club. But in other instances I was glad for Mr. Friedwald’s prodding—for example, forcing me to revisit mostly forgotten albums by Kay Starr and Della Reese.
And I give him a standing ovation when he focuses on some of my favorite unsung singers of the 1950s. Very few music fans under the age of 70 even recognize the names June Christy, Jo Stafford and Lee Wiley. I fear that their remarkable body of work will be forgotten in the not-so-distant future. But Mr. Friedwald gives them the same lavish attention he devotes to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
As these comments make clear, Mr. Friedwald isn’t afraid to serve as advocate for lost causes. I can’t recall a single notable music critic in recent decades championing the work of singers Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence, a husband-and-wife team mostly known for appearances on TV variety shows of the 1960s, where they seemed hopelessly old-fashioned during the age of rock ’n’ roll. But Mr. Friedwald pleads eloquently on their behalf, and probably could convince any jury of their merits.
Of course, this author brings an important advantage to this project. By my estimate, he knew personally at least two-thirds of the singers and arrangers mentioned in these pages. And he clearly grilled them for information on recording sessions and songs, pulling out details that would otherwise be lost not only to us but to history.
He wasn’t always successful. Doris Day, still alive at age 95, apparently has little interest in her old records. “Doris refuses to be impressed by anything in her own catalogue,” Mr. Friedwald complains at one juncture, noting that in all of his conversations with her she refuses to see any of her albums as worthy of note. When he interrogated Anita O’Day on details from her ghost-written memoir “High Times, Hard Times” (1981), the singer “gleefully announced that she had never read her own autobiography.” But our indefatigable critic perseveres, defending even those who won’t defend themselves.
Mr. Friedwald includes a lengthy essay at the beginning of his book on the history of the pop vocal album. He offers the best account I’ve read of the business and aesthetic issues behind the rise of this platform for modern music. But he clearly sees the album as a dying format in the age of streaming, and his whole book is colored by a wistful end-of-an-era attitude.
Perhaps that’s the very reason why Mr. Friedwald decided that the time had come for him to share his list of canonic jazz-pop vocal recordings. The party is over, he seems to say, and the best we can do is spin those classic discs one more time. I’m not so pessimistic, and wish he had made more space in these pages for the current crop of singers. He does give an in-depth appraisal of Cassandra Wilson’s work, but there’s plenty of other music happening that measures up to the best from the Cold War years. Check out Cécile McLorin Salvant’s new album, “Dreams and Daggers,” or the impressive body of recordings by (for starters) Kurt Elling, Gregory Porter, Diana Krall and Ian Shaw.
But if I am more optimistic than Mr. Friedwald about the fate of the jazz-pop album, I do fear the disappearance of the kind of insightful long-form music criticism featured in this book. You rarely encounter thoughtful 5,000-word assessments of albums anywhere nowadays. They may not be extinct, but they do belong on the endangered journalism list. Great musicians and brilliant albums aren’t going away, but loving appraisals as judicious as Mr. Friedwald’s are sadly in short supply.
—Mr. Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. His latest book is “How to Listen to Jazz.”
Sometimes it’s funny how I arrive at the subjects and themes for the postings that appear on the blog.
I like to think that I am a fairly well-organized person, or at least organized enough to write the name of a Jazz musician down in my list of blog projects notebook so as to have a reminder in place about a future posting.
Such was the case with one “Al Cohn.”
Checking back in this notebook you’d see his musician’s name appear in the sax section of the Four Brothers Band of Woody Herman, as the source of arrangements written for the big bands led by Terry Gibbs, Maynard Ferguson and Gerry Mulligan, a quintet that he co-led with Zoot Sims, and the leader of a marvelous set of small group recordings done for the Concord label in the early 1980s.
I mean given the magnitude of his accomplishments in the world of modern Jazz from the mid-1940s until his death in 1988, how could anyone forget the name - “Al Cohn” - as the subject of a feature in a blog that purports itself to be about “Focused Profiles on Jazz and Its Creators!?”
But somehow, ‘lo these many years, I did.
And you’ll never guess what finally got me to this feature on Al. Give up? It was a 1987 recording, remastered and reissued on CD in 2010 as Al Cohn: Rifftide [Timeless Jazz Legacy Remastered TJL 74505] on which Al appears with pianist Rein de Graaff, bassist Koos Serierse and drummer Eric Ineke.
That’s ironic right? 1987, the year before his death??
Sigh, best laid plans and all that …. But I guess it takes what it takes so whatever the source for the spark of enlightenment, here’s some long overdue thought about Al Cohn and his music.
Cohn was the consummate jazz professional. His arrangements were foursquare and unpretentious and his saxophone-playing a model of order and accuracy. He was perhaps never more completely himself than as one of the Four Brothers, the legendary Woody Herman saxophone section. Later in life, though, his soloing look on a philosophical authority unexciting but deeply satisfying.
As Don Heckman explains in his essay The Saxophone in Jazz which can be found in Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz:
“The real force of Young's influence first came to the attention of the wider jazz audience with the Woody Herman Four Brothers Band of the late forties. Stan Getz's Young-inspired solo on "Early Autumn" touched listeners outside the jazz arena. And the other tenors in the band — Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Jimmy Giuffre, Herbie Steward (and, later, Ammons) — emulated Young with the same intensity with which other saxophonists were examining Parker.
Equally significant, Giuffre's "Four Brothers" and Ralph Burns's "Early Autumn" brought a new saxophone section sound—one based upon the combination of three tenor saxophones and one baritone saxophone. It was a combination that never would have worked with players possessing the big, wide-vibrato sound of Hawkins. But with each of the Herman saxophonists using cool-toned, relatively vibra-toless Young timbres, the smooth, grainy sound that emerged was so effective that it ruled the Herman book for years to come. Less obviously, it colored saxophone section playing in general, with a Four Brothers—like sound turning up in other band s— Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson — in which lead alto players in traditional two-alto, two-tenor, and baritone sections adopted a comparably coo land tenor-like tone. (The Basie and Ellington orchestras, their identities already well established, stuck with the more sumptuous textures of the prewar, Hodges-led section style.)”
In his insert notes to Al Cohn on the Saxophone [Dawn DCD 102], Gary Kramer observed of Al:
“AL COHN IS ONE OF THE HARDEST WORKING AND MOST sought-after musicians in Local 802. This isn't just because he is an extremely competent technician and knowing stylist, but because, in addition, he is an "ideas man." Many veins of modern jazz have been so thoroughly worked over that there gets to be a premium on miners like Cohn that can be relied upon to bring up a handful of bright new nuggets every trip down.
With all the bread-and-butter jobs available to jazzmen today, some cynics are saying (with a grain of reason), "More musicians than ever are eating now, and fewer than ever of them are thinking." That Cohn can't be included among the latter is all the more remarkable for the fact that he gets so few breathing spells between jobs. The originality and solidity of his work can easily be documented from his prolific record output. Cohn's undeniable progress is not so much a matter of "advancing" but one of broadening and deepening.
The most impressive thing about Cohn is his sense of heritage, his awareness of what elements of traditional jazz are worth preserving and synthesizing with the modern idiom. His fundamental beat, his dynamic tone and his extrovert spirit arc reincarnations in modern dress of some of the permanently useful ingredients of the older jazz. Observing the frantic efforts of some musicians these days to be "modern" at any cost, Cohn remarked, "Sometimes I feel I don't belong in the modern school at all. Lots of people try to be modern and lose sight of the path." Cohn has a conscious pride in being in the "mainstream" and is not ashamed of his debt to Armstrong, Young, Hawkins and the other giants who antedate Charlie Parker.
Cohn, even though he records frequently with modernists of the more "advanced" sort, admits that when he is at home, he prefers usually to play records for his own pleasure that go back 10 years or more. "They had a happier, more relaxed sound. In general, the solos were much more memorable and 1 think that that is a necessary mark of great ]azz." Cohn is a product of the Swing Era and its big bands, and without feeling that he is a reactionary, goes back to that music for enjoyment and inspiration. It is not a matter of copying anything done in the early Forties, but of being re-infected by the spirit of a less inhibited musical atmosphere.
Al was born and brought up in Brooklyn. As a youngster, he had eyes only for the piano and the clarinet. Lester Young was the great influence of his teenage years, he recalls, and was his inspiration to take up the tenor saxophone. He learned to play tenor by himself, and even though he never took a lesson on the instrument, at 18 he landed a job with Joe Marsala's big band [1943]. Then for several years, until the end of 1946, Cohn played with Georgie Auld off and on and Boyd Raeburn [1946]. Stints in the Alvino Rev, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman [1947-49], Artie Shaw [1949] and Elliot Lawrence bands [on and off from 1952-58] followed.”
Leroy Ostransky in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz picks up the story of Al’s career
“During the 1950’s Al often worked as a freelance arranger, writing straightforward arrangements in the manner of Neal Hefti: his version of Stardust is a good example of his work in this field.
From 1957 into the early 1980s Cohn led a quintet with Zoot Sims, also a former sideman of Herman's. The two players formed an interesting combination: they were both influenced by Lester Young, but Cohn's tone was slightly warmer than his partner's. After successful stints in NYC, notably at the Half Note in the 1950s and 60s, they reformed their quintet and toured Scandinavia in 1974 and Japan in 1978.
Cohn was principal arranger for the musicals Raisin (1973), Music, Music, Music (1974), and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and he played solos on the soundtrack to the film Lenny (1974). In the 1980s he continued to perform in clubs in New York and appear at European festivals.”
Other than his tenure in the Woody Herman Four Brothers Band, perhaps Al’s most famous association was in the quintet he co-led with tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims. The esteemed Jazz author and critic Ira Gitler details the evolution and continuance of the Al-Zoot collaboration in his insert notes to Al Cohn- Zoot Sims: From A to Z:
“Earlier in the 1940s, in New York, they had been briefly introduced when one was entering and the other leaving Charlie's Tavern, famed watering hole for musicians on 7th Avenue, but the official meeting of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims took place in a Salt Lake City parking tot when Al joined Woody Herman's band in January of 1948. It was the beginning of one of jazz's most beautiful and productive friendships.
Bom three and a half weeks and three thousand miles apart in the fall of 1925 — Al in Brooklyn and Zoot in Inglewood, California — each began musical studies on the clarinet but eventually gravitated to the tenor saxophone as his main instrument.
After serving as sidemen in various big bands, Cohn and Sims became linked fraternally in the 1947-49 edition of Herman's Herd called the 'Four Brothers" band. It derived its title from the composition of the same name by Jimmy Giuffre who had played with Sims, Herbie Steward and Stan Getz in Gene Roland's band at Pontrelli's Ballroom in East Los Angeles. The three-tenor-and-baritone-saxophone sound was carried into Herman's band when he reformed in California in the fall of 1947. Sims was not widely known as a soloist, but this was soon remedied when he was featured with Woody.
Cohn had been capturing the ears of the New York cognoscenti that summer in Buddy Rich's band. When he replaced Steward in Herman's orchestra, the "Four Brothers" sound became really established, as Herbie had been mainly playing alto, picking up the tenor only on "Four Brothers" and 'Early Autumn."
Although Herman used Conn's charts (“The Goof and I" and, later, "Music To Dance To") he didn't let him solo beyond the Guiffre number. Getz and Sims had a monopoly on the tenor solos, but if Woody didn't fully appreciate Al's playing at the time, the rest of the band did. Zoot and Al formed a mutual admiration society on and off the stand.
Both men left Herman at different time in 1949, Al returning to his native New York and Zoot putting down new roots there. They played together briefly in Artie Shaw's orchestra and did a lot of jamming in small Manhattan studios that they and other musicians could rent cheaply. There was the historic five-tenor date for Prestige in April 1949 with Cohn, Sims, Getz, Alien Eager and Brew Moore; and a three-tenor group with Al, Zoot and Stan that gigged one night on Long Island and recorded a May '49 session for Savoy.
In September 1952 Al and Zoot recorded for Prestige with trombonist Kai Winding in the front line. The sound of the two tenors, particularly on "Zootcase,” where Kai dropped out, was the first recording that predicted the group they would co-lead later on in the decade.
After playing with Elliot Lawrence's orchestra in 1952, Conn became very active as a writer for radio and TV. At the same time Sims, who had toured Europe with Goodman in '50 and Kenlon in '53, went back to California, returning to New York in 1955 as part of the Gerry Mulligan sextet.
In October 1954 Cohn began recording for RCA with Jack Lewis as his A and R man. The Natural Seven date was done in February of 1955 and Freddie Green's Mr Rhythm in December. In that same December Al and Zoot were booked into Birdland and Jack Lewis decided to record them on January 24,1956. The gig and the record stimulated Sims and Cohn to take a group on the road for the first time. "We had two cars," says Al. "He took the bass and drums—Knobby Totah and Ray Mosca—and Dave McKenna rode with me."
This was a short-lived effort and the two did not try a group again until 1957 when they did a second album, this time for Coral in March. Their quintet really didn't leap ahead until 1959. They appeared at the Randall's Island Jazz Festival and began a long association with the now legendary Half Note club. In the '60s they played there several times a year, once doing a five-week engagement. A Sims-Cohn booking over the New Year's holiday became a tradition. I spent many a happy New Year's Eve down at Hudson and Spring. In fact, in those days I never thought of being anywhere else as December 31st came to a close.
On the elevated bandstand their great rapport and mutual respect were there for all to see and hear. If one was "hotter" at a particular time, the other would play a shorter solo than usual in deference to his partner. For the most part, however, each man's solo inspired the other's; and the eight- and four-bar exchanges would roil and broil to peaks of excitement.
In the 70s Cohn and Sims did not team as often as they had in the '60s. Al stayed extremely busy as a writer for TV and Broadway. Each traveled on his own, picking up local rhythm sections, but they did tour Scandinavia in 1974, and there were a couple of Sunday nights at Eddie Condon's, where they had people lined up on West 54th Street, waiting to get in. Shades of the old Half Note.
In the '80s both men continued to play clubs and record as separate entities. One place where they were able to hang out and play together was at Dick and Maddie Gibson's Colorado Jazz Party. I'll never forget a set at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs when the two tenors backed Sarah Vaughan. It was black tie night and everyone was looking and feeling elegant. Sassy, Zoot and Al translated the sublimity of the evening into musical terms. I wish I had a video.
When Zoot died in March 1985, so did one of the special partnerships in jazz, even if by then it was a sometime thing. It didn't matter how seldom they played as a team in the '80s; the Conn-Sims entry had long since been immortalized.”
To my ears, Al Cohn had a broad, heavy tone; he played in an uncomplicated style, employing regular phrase lengths and idiomatic bop figures. At times, you could hear the earlier influences of Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins creeping back into his “roughened” sonority.
Cohn wasn't always the most convincing soloist, leaving his own most compelling ideas rather hanging in the air. But this tendency to incompletion may have been due to the fact that Al heard more ideas than most and, as a result, was confronted by too many choices. Maybe this is what Ira was alluding to when he described “... Al’s strongly, sagacious, swinging style.”
