Billboard : 02/56/1956
Score of 77

This album must have been conceived as a hopeful experiment: Three tenor saxophones are pitted against rhythm section. Such an arrangement could easily be monotonous but considerable care and ingenuity were exerted to achieve variety of aural effects, and interest is held without straining. Perkins and Kamuca blend well with Cohn and fall easily into his comfortable, listenable idiom. Something different to intrigue the modern jazz crowd.

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Saturday Review
Wilder Hobson : 03/31/1956

Richie Kamuca is elsewhere to be found as a member of a tenor saxophone trio, with Al Cohn and Bill Perkins, presenting a modern program which includes a plethora of expert tenor work, both solo and ensemble. The total effect, however, strikes me as a little too softly genteel, lacking in edge. The light, crystalline piano of Hank Jones is delicious.

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Down Beat : 03/21/1956
Nat Hentoff : 4 stars

The Brothers! is a happy, swinging session with Al Cohn, Bill Perkins, and Richie Kamuca tastily backed by bassist John Beal, Hank Jones, Chuck Flores, and alternating guitarists Barry Galbraith and Sam Beethoven (Jimmy Raney). The originals, almost all unusually attractive, are by Perkins, Bob Brookmeyer, Nat Pierce, Cohn, and the not as well known Bill Potts, who has written some notable scores for Willis Conover‘s THE Orchestra in Washington.

Bill is a real talent and should be used more often on jazz dates that call for manuscript. Perkins also indicates compositional talent, particularly in Pro-Ex. The other three writers live up to their reputations as skilled scorers for small units.

All three tenors blow well in this interstimulating tourney, and it’s a shame that Mitch Reed’s notes fail to provide the most important information required for this set – which tenor plays when. Victor’s jazz liner notes have a long way to go to equal the thoroughness and long-term value of George Avakian’s for Columbia. Very good recorded sound.

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Liner Notes by Mitch Reed

When RCA Victor’s Jack Lewis asked me to write a few words about The Brothers!, and their music enclosed herein, I was somewhat reluctant. I felt that a jazz disc jockey was at his best just playing records, digging same, and hoping that his audience approves (meanwhile, reading the notes that someone else put down!). I was reluctant, that is, until – wow! – I heard some of the sides! Then a team of wild horses couldn’t have kept me away from the typewriter.

Starting off with the gently swinging Blixed, all the way down to the final note on Al Cohn‘s Cap Snapper, this is a session that… well, wails, I guess, is the only word that can apply. Take Sioux Zan, for instance. From the intro, provided by a 19-year-old bass player out of Washington, DC, John Beal, you’re propelled down a spooky corridor of sound where, alternately, the Messrs. Cohn, Kamuca and Perkins cajole and entice, and sometimes take you by the hand, before leading you out the same way you came in. By this time, of course, you’ve decided you would like to stay a while longer. Then, of course, there’s Mr. Berlin‘s Blue Skies. And won’t he be proud when he hears what Al Cohn has done to it! With a respectful nod in the general direction of the nearest Indian reservation, the boys swing merrily along, with Richie Kamuca playing melody, complemented by Bill Perkins and Al Cohn, and assisted by some deft fingering on the part of Hank Jones at the piano. And before you know it, you’ve been taken right to the scene of some great tribal rituals.

Now that Al Cohn’s name has entered into the proceedings, you might like the side that features his wide-open horn. It’s called Strange Again. This turned out to be one of my favorites, and it could very well be yours. Or perhaps Pro-Ex, with its great ensemble sounds led by Bill Perkins, will get your nod. Come to think of it, I could rave all day about these things and never be able to impart to you the pleasure that just listening to them will bring. So, what say, let’s have at it! And while we’re about it, perhaps a fil-in on all the characters on this little sound session would be in order.

Brothers Richie Kamuca and Bill Perkins have bene featured on the Big Band scene for a few years, by virtue of filling chairs in the Woody Herman band. More recently, Bill has been featured with Stan Kenton‘s aggregation. Al Cohn, also an alumnus of the “Herd,” has been likened most often to the very warm and swinging style of “The Pres.,” Lester Young, while still retaining that necessary originality that stamps him as one of the leading tenor men in the business. Incidentally, while listening to the Brothers Cohn, Kamuca and Perkins, you will be hard pressed at times to distinguish between them, so successful was their attempt to blend and integrate their personalities. Bill, at certain times, sounds like Al. There are also spots where Richie sounds like either one or both of the other two!

As for the others, Chuck Flores has been doing yeoman service on the drums, also with the Woody Herman crew. The rest of the rhythm section features Barry Galbraith and Sam Beethoven, who alternate on guitar; Hank Jones on piano, and John Beal on the bass fiddle.

All compositions, with the exception of the aforementioned standard, are contributions from the combined talents of Bill Potts, Bill Perkins, Bob Brookmeyer, Nat Pierce and Al Cohn. In case you might want to keep score as you listen, Bill Potts arranged and composed Blixed, Hags! (his pet name for the members of the fair sex), and Strange Again. Bill Perkins is responsible for the swinging Kim’s Kaper and Pro-Ex, which, as we said before, has some of the best ensemble work I’ve heard in a long while. Bobby Brookmeyer’s contributions are Rolling Stone and Gay Blade. Nat Pierce checks in with Sioux Zan and Three of a Kind. Finally, Al takes laurels for arranging Blue Skies, as well as for Cap Snapper and The Walrus.

Here, then, are The Brothers – Cohn, Kamuca and Perkins – each with different roots and ancestry, different environmental factors entering into his musical upbringing, and yet each with the one talent that serves to bind the three closer, perhaps, than real brothers could ever possibly be. That one unifying factor is the ability to create living, vibrant sounds – while so many others just attempt to.

I had the proverbial “ball” listening to The Brothers! in action. I hope you will, too.