THE FOUR BROTHERS

At 3 p.m. on February 11, 1957, four saxophonists who had  played in Woody's Herman's late-1940s bands entered Webster Hall in New York City to record an album for RCA's Vik label. The musicians were Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Herbie Steward and Serge Chaloff. Except for a two-hour dinner break, the session lasted 10 hours, wrapping at 1 a.m. The result was The Four Brothers: Together Again!, a superb album that shows off the enormous reed work of four seasoned swingers. For those who are scratching their heads about this Four Brothers business, let me explain. In late 1947, tenor saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre  wrote an arrangement for Woody Herman called Four Brothers to showcase the band's saxophone section. Most tenor saxophonists at this point were under the spell of Lester Young's smooth approach on the instrument, and Giuffre's arrangement was designed to spotlight the section's Lester Young chops—both read more...