1977 · Album
Heavy Love
Recorded 1977 · Xanadu Records · Personnel: Al Cohn (tenor saxophone), Jimmy Rowles (piano)
Two Veterans Finding New Ground Together
Full of wit, musical sleight of hand, and tough lyricism that grabs you by the ear.
By 1977, Al Cohn and Jimmy Rowles had each spent three decades in jazz, long enough to know exactly what they could do together without wasting a note. Heavy Love is a late-career collaboration that catches both men at full confidence — not trying to prove anything, just playing with the kind of ease that only comes from decades of listening to how other musicians think. They tackle six standards and a blues, material so familiar that a weaker band would disappear into it. Instead, Cohn's tenor and Rowles's piano move around each other like dancers who know the steps cold and can afford to improvise. The wit Dave Gelly heard in The Observer wasn't forced — it came from two people who understood jazz history deeply enough to reference it without announcing it. There's no grandstanding here, no attempt to sound young or trendy. This is what battle-hardened professionals sound like when they stop trying to impress and start trying to communicate. The recording itself sits comfortably in the Xanadu catalog, part of that label's mission to document the work of musicians who were still playing brilliantly but had moved away from the major labels' spotlight. Heavy Love doesn't belong at the start of either man's story, but it's exactly where you want to land once you've spent time with their earlier work — proof that the best jazz partnerships don't fade, they deepen.
Who's playing
Jimmy Rowlespiano
Al Cohntenor saxophone
Where next?
More by Al Cohn
Jazz Alive! A Night at the Half Note 1959
The Four Brothers… Together Again! 1957
The Al Cohn Quintet 1956
♫
Al Cohn’s Tones 1956
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
