NAKED CITY

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Although officially released in 1990 as a John Zorn solo album, "Naked City" was in fact the debut of a whole new band of the same name. Although it turned out to be a short-lived formation (it lasted only a couple of years), it existed long enough to obtain a legendary status among avant-garde fanatics. With his Naked City project - which also featured Wayne Horvitz, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Joey Baron, and occasionally Yamatsuka Eye - John Zorn produced a challenging mix of jazz and hardcore/metal. Zorn had already experimented with this combination on the cover album "Spy Vs. Spy" - on which Ornette Coleman tunes in the melody section were set against hardcore 'grooves' in the rhythm section - but with Naked City he ventured even further into rock territory. Add to this Zorn's love for film and cartoon music, superb musicianship, and a good dose of humour, and you'll get an idea of what "Naked City" sounds like.

The album contains both original compositions and cover songs (seven in total). The latter, however, are arranged in such a way that they fit into the style of the album perfectly and they don't disturb the flow. The most notable covers are "The James Bond Theme" and "Lonely Woman" - a famous film tune and an early free jazz classic (Ornette Coleman). One of the best originals on the album is the unpredictable "You Will Be Shot", but even more unpredictable - and also the most impressive - are the eight tracks that make up the center of the album. These agressive bursts of energy, all of which clock in at less than fourty-four seconds, pretty much summarize the musical language of the band. Moreover, the fragmentary character of these pieces is distinctive for John Zorn's musical vision at the time. (According to the American musicologist Richard Taruskin, Zorn once wrote that "'I've got an incredibly short attention span', and that his music is meant for listeners who, like him, grew up with television." *)

In my opinion, "Naked City" is a postmodern masterpiece and an artistic statement in the line of such landmark works as Ornette Coleman's "The Shape Of Jazz To Come", Frank Zappa's "Freak Out!" and Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica". Apart from that it could be a nice introduction into Zorn's gigantic discography. People who like wild, experimental music will certainly enjoy it, and especially fans of Mr. Bungle or Fantômas will be delighted.

* Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History Of Western Music, Volume 5: The Late Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 504.

Here is an album crammed with inventive and highly entertaining music with a high degree of spontaneity, yet also a very strong sense of structure, dramatic journey and precision in execution.

The bread and butter of Classic Prog, in other words - and a very difficult combination to achieve.

This is not your father's Prog or even close to Classic Prog - but Progressive it indeed is... after a fashion.

The very opening track, entitled "Batman" strikes you immediately as not being the Batman theme tune at all, rather a cross between Peter Gunn and the bridge section from Saxon's "Princess of the Night" (a riff also used in Metallica's "Seek and Destroy") - or wherever Saxon borrowed it from.

In the first minute, there are subtle interplays and not so subtle interplays between the musicians conjouring up comic-book images. After the first minute, these become more pronounced, and the Peter Gunn theme is all but left behind for 30 seconds as the band go into controlled meltdown.

The final 30 seconds are a recapitulation and codetta of the meltdown madness - and all this in 2 minutes flat (the final 4 seconds are silent run-out).

"The Sicilian Clan" is oddly set up by a Bontempi style organ, with a series of manic modulations that belie the apparently simple Burt Bacharach style of the piece. The improv in this piece is mildly satisfying, but not daring - an oasis of calm after the opening "Batman". The improv becomes far more daring later in the album - you really need to stick with this one.

"You Will Be Shot" twists manically into sudden blurs of sound from an underpinning main riff that stops rather as if it had just noticed something - occasionally dropping into something resembling the "Bontempi" section in the previous track.

But there is cunning in the construction - in a minute and a half, there is the main riff idea, the first "blur" idea - a segment that is essentially repeated, then the "Bontempi" section, followed by a second "blur" idea. This entire structure is essentially repeated, and "main", "blur", "main" used to end the piece.

In other words, a series of very short rapid-fire "hits" merged into a surprisingly traditional and tight structure.

You get the idea. Or rather, an idea.

We can see that a track-by-track would take all day, as there is simply so much packed into each second - blink and you'd miss it. Every detail is clearly intended to be there, which is great news, as that makes this an album to revisit - when you feel up to it.

To qualify the latter, it's the sheer intensity and ferocity of pace at which everything happens that makes listening to "Naked City" a real rush and a drain on one's psychological resources to simply keep up.

Each track explores different areas of "The Naked City", exposing something almost tangible at each step. There are so many points of note that a list would be pointless, but almost every style of music is covered from laid back jazz to tightly controlled noise (plenty of the latter) - and all done cleanly and expertly.

This handily qualifies this album as Prog - but rather a kind of essence of Prog.

It is an album that has plenty to appeal to just about everyone - and plenty to annoy just about everyone too. It's hardly easy-listening, yet there are moments of an almost lounge-jazz flavour that are very accessible indeed, and moments of modern jazz that are quite mind-scrambling - somewhat familiar in places, but that does seem to be the intention, as this album is something akin to a musical tapestry - albeit with touches of Jackson Pollack.

There's something for Prog Metal fans here too - at least those with more "exotic" tastes: If you enjoyed Fantomas "Suspended Animation", then there's much in here that will appeal - the root idea is the same, even if some of the more dominant musical styles are different. The major difference in concept is that this is a regional psychological tour rather than a more personal and time-based one. It should still be listened to in sequence rather than dipping in at random though!

The sequence of 8 sub 1 minute tracks seem to draw much of their inspiration from early Napalm Death (not kidding!), and the cartoon-like qualities will feel familiar.

I find the descent into noise a bit too frequent for my taste, but otherwise, a solid album that I would not consider a masterpiece of Prog Rock, but it's unique, exceptionally well crafted and a highly recommended purchase - but not for the faint of heart!

I believe that this is the most famous recording of JOHN ZORN, partly because it uses a very large scale of musical influences bringing something for almost everybody, and similarly demonstrating new musical styles to people, who wouldn't maybe hear them otherwise. But the biggest reason should be the overall quality of the release, which is high!

"Naked City" is a quite rough listening experience, and the number of different musical styles paint a picture of a violent and chaotic city. "Batman" works as a dynamic opener, which is followed by the mellow and beautiful "The Sicilian Clan". A short promenade to the next ghetto is "You Will Be Shot", which gives some hints of the forthcoming grind metal attacks. After "Latin Quarter" and the HENRY MANCINI tune the violence rate grows again. After ORNETTE COLEMAN cover comes eight short NAPALM DEATH tunes which times range from 11 to 42 seconds. I recall that these tracks caused serious interest among the grindheads to who I played this album! Next stops are Chinatown and Thai area, which are followed by a performance of the classic James Bond Theme. Four more tracks hammer this production of Pandora's Box to the listeners head, either as an abomination or as an interesting cultural artifact.

I respect this record much, but during my tamed adulthood I find seldom strength to listen this kind of music long. Instead of metal heads this should interest also fans of serious jazz listeners, as John has gathered up quite cool band, having BILL FRISELL on guitar and FRED FRITH playing for bass. I wouldn't suggest buying this blindly for a expensive price, but anybody interested of chaotic contemporary art music should give this a listen when possible!

Absolutely perfect mix of avant-jazz/metal/noise and old film soundracks. Perfect musicians, even short form of miniatures doesn't break common feeling.

26 pieces, each of original idea and own melody, sound. Starting from easy acceptable melodic retro-jazz movie melodies,Zorn bring you step by step for more complex structures and rhythms. Till one moment you will realize, that you are in the room full of avant-jazz scratches and metal noise.

But happily all this process happens without pain, and you just feel, that it's strange music is attractive enough.

I think, it's one of most attractive Zorn album, real gem for avant-jazz oriented music fans. For all others - good start for introduction to John Zorn music.

Please note, some music from "Naked City"album was released at "Tortured Garden" album ( or v.v.).