Cool RED Cool

Geoffrey Gordon's Cool RED Cool, for seven players (flute, alto saxophone, trumpet, two percussion, piano and bass), is a jazz and improvisation-tinged response to Andy Warhol's 1986 Self-Portrait. The single movement work follows loosely a kind of A-B-A format--mirroring the title--in which the opening material, presented first in a rhythmically structured manner, returns at the end in a senza misura flurry. In between, the music devolves into a quasi-bebop, providing each of the players a chance to shine as soloists. Various extended performance techniques are employed--an obvious nod to Warhol's ground-breaking will--including multiphonics and pitched key slaps, as well as the juxaposition of very modern harmonic language--six note pillar chords, tone clusters--along side quite standard jazz changes. Warhol's ability to blur the line between pop are and serious art has been inspirational and instructive.

Here is an excerpt from Peter Dobrin's review of the premiere, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on 21 September, 2000:

"The concert's stunner was Geoffrey Gordon's Cool RED Cool for flute, alto sax, trumpet, bass, piano and percussion, which doled out its jazz mostly in brilliant little flashes deftly bursting and dissolving amid a light fog of dissonance. Its inspiration was the 1986 Self Portrait, though one long stretch of jazz was lifted straight out of a 1950s Village bebop club - sophisticated, chromatic, and self-consciously cool."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Geoffrey Gordon
• classical music
• jazz
• bebop
• contemporary music
• Andy Warhol
• chamber music