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Woody Herman presents Four Others


Larry Kart

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You don’t need to know about this 1982 album but probably would like it if you did. Al is in superb form, Perkins for once gets his latter-day conceptual  oddities working for him, Flip is Flip, Sal is Sal (at several points during exchanges he playfully takes off directly from Al’s last ideas), the rhythm section is good (John Bunch, Duvivier, Don Lamond), and Al wrote nice charts that are played with much zest. “Not Really the Blues,” a handsome moody Cohn original “Woody’s Lament,” “Tiny’s Blues,” Al’s “I Wanna Go Home,” “Four Others,” “Tenderly,” and “The Goof and I.” Wish the album were twice as long.

BTW, I feel blessed that I got to hear Al a good deal in Chicago in the '80s (by himself, with Zoot, with Lee Konitz,  with Joe Henderson,  and with Allen Eager, who sadly was in grim shape). With age, Al just seemed to get better and better, stronger and stronger.

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Yeah!  I see that Sal on his last or next to last exchange with Med also picks up on Med's last idea -- at which, I think, Med raises an eyebrow/tips his hat. 

Al and Joe Henderson shared the stand at the Jazz Showcase at some point in the '80s, but during that engagement each man basically played on his own, though I think there were a few tunes in each set with both of them. What I recall was that Joe, fine as he was, was almost blown through the wall by the sheer forcefulness of Al's playing. Wonder what Al and Johnny Griffin would have sounded like together.
 

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  • 1 month later...

I think I saw that album, it´s a Concord , right ? I saw Woody twice , the first time with the Herd in 1979 and the second time with an allstar combo 1985 which indeed had Al Cohn, and also the pianist John Bunch. George Duvivier was scheduled but was replaced to my disappointement but later I heard he died around the same time.

As you say, Al Cohn was fantastic. On that occasion he shared the tenor soloes with Buddy Tate and if I remember right, Scott Hamilton also, and I think Varren Vaché was on trumpet and Jake Hanna might have been on drums.
But Woody also contributed with some short but fine clarinet solos.

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3 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I think I saw that album, it´s a Concord , right ? I saw Woody twice , the first time with the Herd in 1979 and the second time with an allstar combo 1985 which indeed had Al Cohn, and also the pianist John Bunch. George Duvivier was scheduled but was replaced to my disappointement but later I heard he died around the same time.

As you say, Al Cohn was fantastic. On that occasion he shared the tenor soloes with Buddy Tate and if I remember right, Scott Hamilton also, and I think Varren Vaché was on trumpet and Jake Hanna might have been on drums.
But Woody also contributed with some short but fine clarinet solos.

I only saw Woody once - at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. It was late in his career and the only band member I recall is that Walter Bishop Jr was on piano. Anyone able to give the personnel for this European visit?

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