Cool (Leonard Bernstein song)

"Cool" is a song from the musical West Side Story. Leonard Bernstein composed the music and Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics.

Context

In West Side Story, the song is sung by Riff before the Rumble meeting. The Jets are itching to fight with the Sharks, but Riff tells them to wait for the rumble.

In the movie, the song is placed after the rumble where Riff dies. The Jets are saddened by Riff's death and want revenge. When Action and A-Rab start fighting, a man throws an object at them and tells them to go home. Action loses it and threatens the man, forcing the Jets to bring him into a warehouse. Ice (Tucker Smith), a character created for the film who is now their leader, has had it. He tells them they will have to play it cool in order to get through this.

The nice choreography for the film version was so severe that Eliot Feld (Baby John) caught pneumonia from filming in the hot warehouse and cooling outside between scenes and had to be hospitalized.^{[citation needed]} When filming wrapped, all the actors ritually burned their kneepads.^{[citation needed]}

This song is known for its fugal treatment of a bebop jazz idiom.^{[citation needed]}

Cover Versions

In the 2011 episode of Glee (TV Series), actor Harry Shum Jr. made a cover as Mike Chang in the third episode of season 3 Asian F