Obituaries : Tenor Saxophonist, Composer Alvin (Al) Cohn

Alvin (Al) Cohn, a tenor saxophonist who never studied that instrument yet came to be one of its best-known modern scholars, died late Monday night at his home in Canadensis in northeastern Pennsylvania.

He was 62 and died of cancer--the same illness that nearly three years ago claimed the life of fellow sax savant John Haley (Zoot) Sims with whom he had been closely identified in the later stages of his career.

Unlike Sims, who spent his entire adult life with his horn on bandstands or in recording studios, Cohn devoted many years to composing and arranging music for such varied television programs as “Your Hit Parade” and “The Steve Allen Show.”

But his wife, Flora, said that most recently Cohn had returned to playing, “which he loved most of all.”

His cancer was diagnosed last New Year’s Eve after he collapsed while playing at Blackstone’s in Chicago, she added.

Leonard Feather, The Times jazz critic, once described Sims and Cohn as “fraternal rather than identical twins . . . who evolved their own directions.”

Early Influence

It was a direction pointed out by Lester Young, an early and lasting influence on the two sidemen who then added their own grace and timbre to Young’s swinging sound.

Born in Brooklyn, Cohn studied clarinet and piano but not saxophone before joining Joe Marsala’s big band in 1943. He played with Georgie Auld until 1946 and then joined, successively, Alvino Rey, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman and Artie Shaw.

In 1949 he “retired” for the first time but returned in 1952 as a free-lance arranger performing occasionally with Elliot Lawrence. He scored for the old Jack Sterling radio show and then with the Andy Williams, Pat Boone and Allen shows.

In 1957 he and Sims, who died March 23, 1985, formed the quintet that made them both famous in jazz circles.

After appearances in 1959 at New York City’s Half Note Cafe and the Randall’s Island Jazz Festival, their recordings took off. With and without Sims, Cohn was heard on RCA Victor, Coral, United Artists, Dawn and Savoy Records.

In one 1979 review, Feather lauded the quintet’s original tunes, most of them written by Cohn, as “remaining true to the swinging essence of the era that produced them.”

In addition to his wife, Cohn is survived by a son, Joe, a guitarist, and a daughter, Lisa.