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Swing-Era Dossier

Al Cohn

1925 – 1988

Born

Nov 24, 1925, Brooklyn, New York. Given name Alvin Gilbert Cohn.

Died

Feb 15, 1988, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania (Pocono Mountains, where he settled), age 62. Liver cancer. Recorded his last album, Rifftide, the year before (1987).

Instruments

Tenor saxophone (primary). Started on piano and clarinet as a kid; switched to tenor after hearing Lester Young and taught himself the horn. Equally renowned as an arranger/composer — the rare swing-bred player whose pencil became as famous as his horn.

Nicknames

None personally used — unusually for the era, "Al Cohn" stuck as-is. The closest thing to a moniker is the duo billing "Al & Zoot" (with Zoot Sims), under which the pair worked for nearly four decades.

Bands / years

  • Joe Marsala big band (1943) — professional debut at 18.
  • Georgie Auld (mid-1940s, on and off).
  • Boyd Raeburn (1946) — the progressive, modern-leaning big band.
  • Buddy Rich big band (briefly, ~1946–47).
  • Woody Herman's Second Herd (1948–49) — joined the famed "Four Brothers" reed section, replacing Herbie Steward alongside Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and baritone Serge Chaloff.
  • Artie Shaw (1949) — one of his last big swing-band chairs.
  • Elliot Lawrence Orchestra (1952–58, on and off) — played and wrote charts.
  • Freelance NYC studio/radio/TV arranger from the mid-1950s.
  • Al Cohn–Zoot Sims Quintet — co-led 1957 into the early 1980s; legendary 1960s runs at the Half Note; toured Scandinavia (1974) and Japan (1978).

Active

1943–1988 (working to the end).

Signature tunes

"The Goof and I" (his first chart for Herman, and his best-known original), "Music to Dance To" (also written for Herman's book). Identified as a player with the Al & Zoot albums Al and Zoot (1957) and From A to Z (1957).

Famous compositions

  • Wrote: "The Goof and I" and "Music to Dance To" — both contributed to the Woody Herman book. A prolific arranger/composer across decades of record dates and big bands.
  • Did NOT write: "Four Brothers" — the tune that named his section is by Jimmy Giuffre (written for Herman). Cohn played the Four Brothers chair but the famous composition is Giuffre's, not his. Common misattribution worth flagging.
  • Arranged (didn't compose): Broadway's Raisin (1973) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981, the Duke Ellington revue); charts for Buddy Rich, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Gerry Mulligan, Terry Gibbs, Bob Brookmeyer.

Interesting facts

  • Bridge to cool. Came up in the last great swing big bands (Herman's Herd), then carried Lester Young's light, behind-the-beat tenor into the cool/modern school — one of the players through whom swing became cool jazz.
  • Met lifelong partner Zoot Sims in a Salt Lake City parking lot when he joined Woody Herman in January 1948; their "Al & Zoot" partnership ran ~37 years. Cohn on it: "We think alike, even though we play differently."
  • Played the saxophone section backing Elvis Presley at Madison Square Garden in June 1972 (Joe Malin Orchestra) — the cool-jazz tenorman in an Elvis pit band.
  • Arranged the dance music for Broadway's Sophisticated Ladies (1981) — a full-circle return to the Ellington songbook, decades after his swing apprenticeship.
  • Known among musicians for a famously dry, deadpan wit — the "Cohn one-liner" was its own genre on the bandstand.
  • A jazz dynasty: married singer Marilyn Moore; son Joe Cohn is a jazz guitarist; granddaughter Shaye Cohn plays cornet with New Orleans' Tuba Skinny.

Sources

Clips