Customer Reviews

Four Classic Albums

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Another Avid company's winner; collection of 4 great LPs showcasing Al Cohn in various surroundings, playing tenor, but also some clarinet and baritone, composing and arranging at the peak of his powers, collaborating with some of the finest white jazz musicians (most notably Bob Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Gene Quill and Mose Alison), but also with Joe Newman, Coltrane and Donald Byrd...

We have MR MUSIC album, where Al is a true star; complete musician heading a small big band (with Joe Newman, Frank Rehak, Gene Quill...), a true testament to his tallent. And then there are two albums with Bob Brookmeyer (the one under Brookmeyer's name otherwise not available on amazon), one of Al's albums with Zoot Sims (where both play some jubilant clarinet on one track), PLUS two tracks from "Poll winners" album, featuring Coltrane, a very promising young tenorist, Donyld Byrd, Gene Quill and Al on baritone sax (he was high in Downbeat polls on that instrument that year...).

Some of tracks are excellent cool jazz, some are plain mainstream, most are very swinging and ellegant! Highly recommended to all tenor sax fans, Al Cohn fans, cool jazz fans, mainstream jazz fans, Bob Brookmeyer fans, Zoot Sims fans.... At the time I'm writing this, it's very much available on British amazon, for a price much lower than any single album.

Why is this 2-CD set such a good deal? In Europe, copyright only lasts for 50 years (though it was recently extended to 70 years on new releases), so older recordings can be issued without paying royalties. Thus Avid, a British company that makes omnibus sets of classic jazz, can offer lower prices. And if you check Amazon Marketplace sellers, you can usually grab these discs for less than ten dollars!

"Four Classic Albums," as its name promises, includes all of the cuts on a quartet of superb albums from the mid-1950s -- Mr. Music, Al Cohn Quintet Featuring Bob Brookmeyer, Al & Zoot (Zoot Sims), and Bob Brookmeyer Featuring Al Cohn -- together with a couple of tracks from Winners's Circle, an album with John Coltrane. Over two-and-a-half hours of music is impeccably remastered, and original liner notes are included. And unlike another reviewer of this item, I've had no troubles with skipping or harsh sound.

Also look into other collections on the Avid label, including sets by Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Milt Jackson, Anita O'Day, John Lewis, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Jimmy Giuffre, Stan Getz, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Art Blakey, Art Pepper, Benny Goodman, Barney Kessell, Zoot Sims, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Blossom Dearie, Chico Hamilton, Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey, and many others.

I had to return my copy because the CDs skipped in several places. Also, the remastering job done by Avid Records is terrible; annoyingly harsh, bright sound. As to the music, I'd rate it about 4 1/2 stars if I could, but this is supposed to be a review of the product as a whole. The albums contained in this set are available as single CDs; those versions have much better sound. I know - I own two of them.