Naked City - John Zorn (1989)

Ideated from: the digital crate digging of pre-Napster MP3 sharing.

John Zorn contains multitudes. He plays sax, both in a wild avante-garde style and occasionally more conventionally, he composes for strings as well as jazz ensembles, he leads multiple bands that feature various aspects of his musical personality. His Masada project is his venue for exploring Jewish musical traditions and fusing them with jazz. He was also in a band called Painkiller with dub-master Bill Laswell and the drummer from Napalm Death, which is about exactly as weird and brutal as it sounds.

Naked City is his band full of downtown-NYC scene improvisers. This was my first introduction to Zorn, and it works pretty well to get your head around everything he does.

The band features Zorn, an unusually caustic Bill Frisell (o_O) on guitar, and guitarist Fred Frith playing bass. They blend jazz, rock, metal, and film music with a noir flair. Most of the longer, more composed songs are built on bass grooves or guitar riffs for structure, but then jump off on into whatever explorations they decide to get after. There are also a bunch of little interstitials that go for the jugular and finish in under a minute.

It’s a monster of a record that is forceful, precise, loose, frightening, and beautiful all at once.

Tracks I Liked

Batman - maybe named after the walking bass line? It sounds a bit like looney toons to me, and it’s awesome

The Sicilian Clan - Ennio Morricone film music, done pretty straight compared to everything else. There’s a whole Zorn album of Morricone music called The Big Gundown

Saigon Pickup - A little of everything mushed together, but that’s a compliment.