Cool Cut (alto sax and chamber orchestra)

PROGRAM NOTE for COOL CUT

A purposely enigmatic work, I have taken as inspiration the first few notes or phrases from key compositions from the "cool jazz" period, specifically the landmark Miles Davis nonette recording BIRTH OF THE COOL, which was recorded Jan. and April 1949 and March 1950 (and released in 1957). Baritone saxophonist and composer Gerry Mulligan's tunes are at the core of the piece. My favourite Dave Brubeck composition, "Blue Rondo a la Turk" also makes appearances at various points, and the unavoidable famous Paul Desmond tune "Take Five" elbows it's way in during the very last section.

Many of these tunes are between 4 to 12 bars long, and the rest consists of improvisation over chord changes. Whereas improvisation is often the core interest for jazz music lovers, in my case, I sought similarities of chords and melodic structures among the various tunes, and mashed those together, discarding improvisation entirely.

I also purposefully keep the duration of the 5 tunes quite short, between about 2 to 4 minutes in length, so they are very compact and end suddenly.

My very special thanks to Alison E Kirkley & Richard Carswell for their financial support of this project, as well as the following who contributed to an online fundraising campaign: J Morlock, S Easton, D C Pay, Margaret Carter, M M Eister, J Solis, R Jackson-Coombs, P Duncan, J Harper, M E Denburg, S Bruneau, P D Green, K Kamachi, C Cheng, Y Shih Lin, C E Sawyer, M Silverman, E. Bligh, C Lovett, P J Stollery, S Chien, L Hoffman, M K Yeats, A Cavillon, B Mahon, B Degazio, M Kamachi

[If space permits, I prefer to acknowledge the funders by their complete first name, and so the list after the colon would be as follows:

Jocelyn Morlock, Suzy Easton, David C Pay, Margaret Carter, Garry M Eister, Jeff Solis, Rex Jackson-Coombs, Preston Duncan, Janis Harper, Moshe E Denburg, Sandra Bruneau, Patricia D Green, Ken Kamachi, Cindy Cheng, Yang Shih Lin, Carol E Sawyer, Matt Silverman, E. Bligh, Craig Lovett, P J Stollery, Sammy Chien, Linda Hoffman, Marc K Yeats, Anne Cavillon, Brad Mahon, Bruno Degazio, Mark Kamachi]