The Natural Seven - Al Cohn

Jump The Blue Away

The Natural Seven

RCA Victor LPM 1116

Photos: David B. Hecht

1955

From the back cover: In the land of the free, most people feel, the livin' is easy. And in the land of jazz, the feeling' is free and easy when the jazz is being blown á la Count Basie. And the living' becomes pretty great, too!

The jazz that's boarded directly underneath this card you're now reading is definitely á la Basie. It's been blown into those minute grooves with great tenderness by seven musicians who feel and do quite naturally what the great Count gave to jazz: that free and easy and light and airy and, above all, that swinging music. They admit it. And they're proud of it, too.

Says their leader, Al Cohn: "We tried on these records to recapture the feeling of the Kansas City Seven – in our own way, of course." (The Kansas City Seven, just in case you're not quite sure, is a septet out of the Basie hand that made such great sounds in the mid-thirties when it first burst into the swing scene.) "The rhythm section sound a lot like theirs, we hope. That's because we were able to use their guitarist, Freddie Greene, who, so far as I'm concerned, makes the sound of the album, and makes it sound different from anything else."

Greene is considered by many jazz experts as the definitive rhythm guitarist, with his light, swinging, delicately persuasive strumming. His section-mates here are Milt Hinton, that driving, enthusiastic veteran of the string bass, who was there when Basie first made his sounds; Osie Johnson, an especially talented drummer who's also an arranger; and Nat Pierce, Woody Herman's pianist and formerly a leader of his own big band in Boston, who knows whereof Basie plays and proves it with his performances here.

The horns are the same as those used in the Kansas City Seven: trumpet, trombone and tenor sax. Joe Newman is currently the featured jazz trumpeter in the Basie band, but, as Cohn explains in pointing out the differences between the Kansas City and The Natural Seven, "he doesn't play at all like Buck Clayton," who was featured in the K.C. group. Instead, he sounds a good deal like Harry Edison who, for years, shared trumpet solos with Clayton. And Frank Repack, the former Woody Herman trombone star, "doesn't sound anything like Dickie Wells."

Which leaves just one comparison to make, the one between Al Cohn and Lester Young, the great Basie tenor saxist. There are two schools of thought here. "My wife thinks I sound a lot like him," say Al. "I don't think I do." Nevertheless, Cohn does admit that President influenced his playing greatly in his formative years, when he was with such bands as Joe Marsala's and Georgie Auld's and Buddy Rich's. Since then, Al has been starred with Woody Herman, Artie Shaw and Elliot Lawrence, and his tastes have changed. "Now I like Sonny State and Zoot Sims." – George T. Simon

A Kiss To Build A Dream On

Doggin' Around

Jump The Blues Away

Jack's Kinda Swing

The Natural Thing To Do

Baby Please

9:20 Special 

Pick A Dilly

Count Me In

Freddie's Tune

Osie's Tune