Chance Meeting
Friday June 20th, 2025 with Heavy Ben
Peter Gordon & Love Of Life Orchestra

Chance meeting on no wave of a saxophone and heartbreak Disco not Disco, 80s sax and a gay cowboy song. Today, we wish a happy 74th birthday to composer, producer, and saxophonist Peter Gordon and shine the spotlight on a true innovator of the downtown New York scene. Gordon was born in New York in 1951, and raised in Los Angeles. In high school, he befriended Captain Beefheart and witnessed some of the recordings of Trout Mask Replica (“The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening said it took him just seven listens to go from hating the album to deciding it was the greatest of all time). "It was really through Beefheart that introduced me to the idea that rock music and pop music could be art simultaneously, and you didn't have to buy into the whole commercial record business. You could make really raw, funky music and have it be really smart at the same time." Gordon emerged from the avant-garde arts and music circles of the 1970s. He studied under electronic music pioneers Terry Riley and Robert Ashley at Mills College in Oakland, worked alongside Philip Glass in NYC, then carved out his own sonic identity merging jazz, disco, minimalism, and funk with a touch of theatrical flair. As the mastermind behind the Love of Life Orchestra, Gordon's collaborations bridged gaps between the worlds of experimental composition and danceable groove, helping shape the DNA of New York’s no wave and post-disco sound. We need to give huge assists to David Van Tieghem, Arthur Russell, Laurie Anderson, David Cunningham, Jill Kroesen, Peter Zummo, Rhys Chatham, Ned Sublette, and one-time Stooges "Blue" Gene Tyranny and Steve MacKay. Their compositions and instrumentation are integral to Gordon's recording history that began in 1975 and runs for over 50 years. Gordon resides in New York City with his wife and collaborator, the video artist Kit Fitzgerald, and is a professor emeritus of Music Technology at Bloomfield College. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gordon_(composer) (to embiggen the show icon, right-click and choose "Open image in new tab")