You got to love this cover art. The Lester Young influenced Al Cohn is a cat I’m exploring at the moment. He did some great stuff with Zoot Sims for example which I have been listening to a bit. This album is my first album with him as a leader and my first on the Dawn label. It’s a great one with plenty of stuff to enjoy. There are some lovely ballads, slow and blues-drenched stuff and some medium tempo and up tempo numbers which really hits the spot. It’s all very lyrical. No big suprises, just good jazz. The band featured here is Cohn on the tenor, Frank Rehak on the trombone, Hank Jones on piano, Milt Hinton on the double bass and Osie Johnson on the drums. Great band.
One of my favorite tunes on this album is the classic standard ”Softly As In A Morning Sunrise”. So light and airy with a theme that is just top notch.
A lot of the stuff Cohn released can be found for very reasonable prices. That’s great because it fits in well with my approach to collecting. Meaning trying to find wonderful jazz on original vinyl, in mono, for sane prices. My days of buying original Blue Notes are pretty much over. It’s just not justifiable paying those prices for me anymore. I leave that stuff to the folks with deeper pockets. If I find an original Blue Note for a great price, then fine, but I don’t think that is plausible the way the market has been going in recent times. I’m happy though, that I managed to be very disciplined for so many years, saving up for months just to buy one album. Many of the titles I acquired way back are in the stratosphere now price-wise, and I would never be able to afford them today. But it’s so much fun exploring and to find great stuff on labels I haven’t given much attention to before.
Do you have any favorite Al Cohn titles you’d like to share? Cheers!