Tangents, Naked City

I started writing this as a classic album article, but quickly realised that it’s: a) not strictly jazz, although the musicians all work in that sphere; b) features some very ugly music which may well put people off, and c) includes a grisly cover and song titles that might cause offence. All of which should probably be a flashing sign telling me to forget the notion, except that John Zorn is an important figure within contemporary music that he warrants it… plus, I’ve started so I’ll finish. Some of you might even enjoy it, so welcome to the inaugural Tangents piece, which will allow me to sporadically waffle on about some of my more left-field tastes, without actively encouraging you to go out and buy it as a Classic Album (even though it is).

Preamble over, now travel back in time with me to 1989 and the fast fading repertory theatres, clinging to their arts council grants via a steady diet of Brecht and Beckett; in this instance it’s Leicester’s Haymarket Theatre, where I worked front-of-house whilst in the sixth form. It would host monthly jazz events (always worth working as you got paid time-and-a-half for a Sunday), and this particular event was John Zorn and his group Naked City, made up of New York’s finest improvisers. As we all know, life before the internet didn’t exist unless there are photos to prove it did, so details are a little foggy, but the line-up would have been Bill Frisell (guitar), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), Fred Frith (bass), and Joey Baron (drums). I am fairly sure Yamatsuka Eye, frontman of Japanese noise-rock band Boredoms was also in attendance, but that might be wishful thinking.

Zorn was and still is a pivotal figure on the New York improv scene, involving himself with musicians from all sorts of different disciplines. But then the arts scene in New York in the eighties was all about collaboration, with the boundaries between jazz, avant-garde classical and rock all blurring. Sonic Youth were members of Glen Branca’s guitar orchestra, Hip Hop and the graffiti art of Jean-Michel Basquiat was everywhere (with Blondie rapping on Rapture) and John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Morton Feldman were all ‘composing’ there, and Lou Reed was being Lou Reed. And of course Trump was doing his level best to spoil it all, buying up real estate and building grotesque effigies of himself. Over in the midlands of the UK, Napalm Death were pioneering grindcore metal, whose drummer, Mick Harris, would go on to form Painkiller with Zorn and Bill Laswell. In Japan, Merzbow was experimenting in pure noise, and Boredoms had released Soul Discharge mixing all of the above together. Zorn’s work in this period involved applying game rules to improvisation, the most well known of these being Cobra: a set of rules for improvising that can be adapted from a duo to a full orchestra. But his breakthrough was The Big Gundown, an album of radical Ennio Morricone arrangements and a who’s who of the scene. Essentially Zorn’s music reflects the organised chaos of New York, millions of people, the traffic, the neon, the noise.

Back in a more sedate Leicester, I was the only theatre steward who liked jazz, so I managed to sit through the whole show. A few weeks prior I had endured an Evan Parker solo set, the bearded one circular breathing his way through an hour of unbroken squawking that sounded like a goose on a roller coaster, leaving me bored and bemused in equal measure (it took me another decade to crack that egg, and even then in small doses), so I had no idea what to expect from Naked City. On walked an intimidating bunch, led by a wiry, nerdy looking chap with an alto sax. I can’t remember if they kicked off with Perfume of a critic’s burning flesh or Jazz snob eat sh.. (I’ll let you imagine the noun), whichever, it was terrifying and hilarious at the same time, played with absolute conviction, and over and done in 30 seconds. They’d leapt from Zorn’s agonised solo sax into an extreme metal grind, briefly switched channel to lounge music, back to metal, screamed something in Japanese, decided to go honky-tonk for a couple of bars, and then ended on an effete rising synth note. Following a few more tunes like this the middle-aged Leicester jazz crowd who had paid good money for an evening of foot tapping started heckling, which wound-up Zorn, who baited the audience back by asking why they’d come if they didn’t know his music, and proudly announcing the next offensive song title. This clip shows Naked City in their prime during this period.

It wasn’t all insanity though – the band started to play pieces with longer attention spans, of which Batman, the first track on this album, is a good example. It’s not a cover of the theme tune, more a reimagining of a Batman kind of theme, with Frisell offering up tasty surf-guitar licks over Zorn’s faux noir, kitschy arrangement. Or Saigon Pickup which alternates between a whimpering rip-off of Morricone’s famous Chi Mai (theme for Life and Time of Lloyd George), blues rock pastiche and skronk interjections. And more screaming. This album (still in print thankfully) is a good representation of Naked City and Zorn in the late eighties, and is in truth, an entertaining listen.

I’m not unusual in wishing I’d been part of at least one musical revolution – didn’t exist in the sixties, at primary school for punk, not cool enough to rave (still in the throes of a teenage Mahler crush) so the Naked City experience was the closest I got to a musical epiphany. And look at the players involved, all offering different directions to pursue: Boredoms will take you to Melt Banana, Ruins, and heaven help you, Merzbow. Fred Frith sends you back to Henry Cow and UK art-rock like King Crimson, whilst Bill Frisell will happily take you on an Americana trip whilst Bill Laswell goes into dub, and drum and bass. I can also blame Mr. Zorn for huge swathes of near-unlistenable records bought over the years (Borbetomagus anyone)? Thirty years on, I still play this album at regular intervals, for the sheer sin of it, and to look at the postcard Zorn sent me from New York in response to my one and only ever fan-letter. It’s also useful for encouraging guests to start thinking about going home – this one doesn’t melt the ice at parties.