Born September 20, 1942, in Boston, Mass. Grew up in Dorchester section of Boston, AlexandriaVA and Silver Spring MD. Lived in and around Washington DC for all of his adult life.
Graduated from Wheaton High School in 1960, and the University of Maryland-College Park (1969 or 1970), with a major in psychology and minor in English.
Len Cohen was first and foremost a writer. It’s probably safe to say that he had a writing project in process for all of his adult life. The author of XX novels, numerous essays, short stories and a large collection of poetry, Cohen may be best known for his music criticism that appeared several times a week in the Washington Star during the early 1970s. In spite of a successful but part-time career in news writing, he longed to be taken seriously as a novelist.
University of Maryland professors Rudd Fleming (an Ezra Pound translator and scholar) and J.R. Salamanca (author of the novel “Lillith”) provided literary guidance and support to Cohen during his 20s, when he wrote his first four novels. In 1964, Fleming introduced Cohen to Maryland poet and sculptor Sy Gresser, in hopes that the more established artist could steer the young writer in the proper direction. As a result, Gresser may have had more influence than anyone over Cohen’s literary development. Their friendship survived almost 40 years, outlasting marriages, moves and crises.
Cohen also was a natural musician, self-taught in at least a dozen instruments ranging from guitars to horns, but he was most proficient on the standard American drum set. Big-band drummer Walter Salb was his first hero, and remained a friend for the rest of Cohen’s life. Salb, then of Salb Hanson Music in Takoma Park, built Cohen’s hands, taught him percussion basics, and got him interested in the music business as a career. Later, Bill Reichenbach, who was Charlie Byrd’s drummer for many years, helped Cohe polish his jazz chops and find a more mature musical voice.
Cohen’s first regular job as a drummer was for Jay and the Continentals, a popular local college club band started by his younger brother, Jason, an accordionist and singer. The older Cohen not only provided the beat for the band, but acted as manager. He got the group into some of the biggest parties and shows on the local college circuit.
In the late 1960s, Cohen shepherded another group of musicians, in this case, from Texas. Cohen brought four musicians, including high school pal Robert Bruno, up to Maryland, where several of them shared his home and looked for gigs while they wrote music. Cohen paid for professional demo tapes, and tried unsuccessfully to find a long-term gig for the five of them, while he worked a day job at an insurance agency. Eventually, the four Texans moved to New York City, where Vanguard recorded their work—with a different drummer—as the band Circus Maximus, perhaps best known as the springboard for songs written by Bruno (“The Wind”), and Jerry Jeff Walker (“Mr. Bonjangles”).
In spite of his interest in rock, Cohen considered himself a jazz drummer. Even during his teen years, many peers considered him one of the best drummers in D.C. While he was in his 20s and 30s, he worked at some of the best clubs in town, many now defunct. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Cohen performed with John Malachi, long-time accompanist for Sarah Vaughan, at Jimmy McPhail’s Gold Room on Bladensburg Road NE. Also, he was part of the Steve Ross Trio at The Place Where Louis Dwells, a swank underground nightclub that once was at 4th and I SW. Cabaret singer Ross later went on to fame at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, and beyond. Today, Ross is considered in the same league as Michael Feinstein and Bobby Short.
Like many drummers, Cohen was drawn to the visceral sound of the string bass. He especially appreciated working with local bass legends Fred Williams, Steve Novosel, and Duane Alston, and others prominent in the mid-century DC jazz scene, including pianists John Phillips and Lawrence Wheatley, guitarist Steven J. Nicholas, trombonist Bud Larson, and the sultry vocalist Donna Jewel.
Referring back to those heady days, Cohen commented several years ago (to his first wife, Paula Hartman) that one of his favorite musical memories was an afternoon in the early 1970s he spent jamming in New York City with legendary guitarists David Bromberg and Dan Armstrong, the Dutch jazz-harmonica player Toots Thielmanns, and several others. He considered that moment the apex of his jazz career, and typical of the way jazz evolved as an art form, one session at a time. Reacting to the broadcast of Ken Burns’s PBS series about the history of jazz, he decried the current state of the art, saying in an email to Hartman that the art form was “slowly being absorbed into institutions so that affluent … people can go and observe it in a safe environment and at a safe distance.”
“So, we have repertory jazz played by university-trained musicians – politely,” he continued. “Of course, there is still vital and aggressive music out there, down at the dregs end of the marketing chain… but you’ve got to dig to find it, and that might mean going into some ‘bad’ neighborhoods.”
In 1971, his interest in writing and his musical talent provided the right combination for another part-time job, this one as a freelance music critic for the now-defunct Washington Star newspaper. Star editor and prominent music critic Irving Lowens hired Cohen as a stringer to cover jazz, pop and rock music. Cohen had written a letter complaining that most critics failed at pop and jazz criticism because they weren’t musicians and,therefore, couldn’t understand the idiom.
A frequent columnist for about three years, Cohen gave readers a heads-up on new records, critiqued concerts and club dates, and wrote features based on interviews with some of the biggest names in the business, including the Rolling Stones, Steven Stills, B.B. King, and Willy Nelson. As a result, he built professional friendships that lasted well beyond his years with the Star, with singer/songwriters John Hall of the group Orleans, John Prine, and others.
Also in 1971, Cohen filled in for an ailing adjunct instructor who taught English and creative writing in the Upward Bound program at American University, and he remained at that post for several years. He loved teaching and his students loved him.
While working at these two part-time gigs, he continued working as a drummer in and around DC, whenever he could find work.
—Paula Hartman