| Naked City | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | February 16, 1990 | |||
| Recorded | 1989 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 55:14 | |||
| Label | Elektra Nonesuch | |||
| Producer | John Zorn | |||
| John Zorn chronology | ||||
| ||||
Naked City is an album by John Zorn, released on Elektra Nonesuch in February 1990. [1] The band assembled by Zorn for the album would later be known as Naked City. The album is characterized by its covers of movie themes and its fusion of various musical genres.
The group Zorn assembled for the material recorded on Naked City would later become a band in its own right known under the same name; the lineup was Zorn on alto saxophone with Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The group was established in 1988 as a "compositional workshop" to test the limitations of a rock band format. [2]
The album consists of several covers of movie themes, one jazz standard, and original compositions by Zorn, including several "hardcore miniatures" which would later be compiled on the album Torture Garden . The project, especially on this album, was noted for wildly juxtaposing various musical genres in rapid succession. [3]
The album's cover art features Weegee's 1940 photograph "Corpse With Revolver"; Weegee's 1945 book gave the band its name. [3] Also featured are macabre illustrations by manga artist Maruo Suehiro.
The album was released by Elektra Nonesuch, which Zorn had previously released albums for; the subsequent releases of the Naked City group would be released on smaller labels like Shimmy Disc, and Zorn's own Tzadik and Avant labels.
The album was later rereleased as part of the box set Naked City: The Complete Studio Recordings on Tzadik Records in 2005. [4]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  [5] |
| Rolling Stone |  [6] |
The AllMusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 5 stars stating "The stimulating music rewards repeated listenings by more open-minded listeners." [5]
Jon Pareles observed in The New York Times that "Mr. Zorn doesn't bother with transitions. While he and his musicians create every sudden textural shift themselves, without technological assistance, his guides are the splice, the jump cut, the video edit - not to mention the jack-in-the-box and its more sinister relatives in funhouses and horror movies. In his music, coherence is barely more than propinquity; one sound or style simply doesn't predict the next." [7]
Christopher Thelen noted "While Naked City is certainly groundbreaking, it hardly is for everybody. The faint-hearted will be running for the exits before Zorn and crew can really get warmed up; purists of jazz, rock, and possibly even grindcore might consider the marriage of several styles of music sacrilegious. Possibly. But for the rest of us, Naked City represents unbridled energy, passion and possibly even anger channeled into music. The resulting noise is sheer joy to those who get it, and sheer madness to those who don't." [8]
Pitchfork Media ranked this album at 47 on their Top 100 Albums of the 1980s list. [9] Their review of The Complete Studio Recordings stated "On Naked City, Zorn introduced an amped-up surf/lounge/punk band featuring downtown New York's biggest talents, who blast and din through the 'James Bond' theme song, the theme to Chinatown , and a sound portrait of New Orleans' Latin Quarter – and then right when they slip into a groove, out of nowhere, the band launches punishing blasts of noise and catastrophe, flaming wreckage that blows up and collapses on a dime." [10]
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Batman" | 1:58 | |
| 2. | "The Sicilian Clan" | Ennio Morricone | 3:27 |
| 3. | "You Will Be Shot" | 1:29 | |
| 4. | "Latin Quarter" | 4:05 | |
| 5. | "A Shot in the Dark" | Henry Mancini | 3:09 |
| 6. | "Reanimator" | 1:34 | |
| 7. | "Snagglepuss" | 2:20 | |
| 8. | "I Want to Live" | Johnny Mandel | 2:08 |
| 9. | "Lonely Woman" | Ornette Coleman | 2:38 |
| 10. | "Igneous Ejaculation" | 0:20 | |
| 11. | "Blood Duster" | 0:13 | |
| 12. | "Hammerhead" | 0:08 | |
| 13. | "Demon Sanctuary" | 0:38 | |
| 14. | "Obeah Man" | 0:17 | |
| 15. | "Ujaku" | 0:27 | |
| 16. | "Fuck the Facts" | 0:11 | |
| 17. | "Speedball" | 0:37 | |
| 18. | "Chinatown" | Jerry Goldsmith | 4:23 |
| 19. | "Punk China Doll" | 3:01 | |
| 20. | "N.Y. Flat Top Box" | 0:43 | |
| 21. | "Saigon Pickup" | 4:46 | |
| 22. | "The James Bond Theme" | John Barry | 3:02 |
| 23. | "Den of Sins" | 1:08 | |
| 24. | "Contempt" | Georges Delerue | 2:49 |
| 25. | "Graveyard Shift" | 3:25 | |
| 26. | "Inside Straight" | 4:10 | |
| Total length: | 55:14 | ||
John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, producer and dedicated improviser that deliberately resists category. Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted "Though Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he’s gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.
Guy Klucevsek is an American-born accordionist and composer. Klucevsek is one of relatively few accordion players active in new music, jazz and free improvisation.
Naked City was an avant-garde music group led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Active primarily in New York City from 1988 to 1993, Naked City was initiated by Zorn as a "composition workshop" to test the limits of composition in a traditional rock band lineup. Their music incorporated elements of jazz, surf, progressive rock, classical, heavy metal, grindcore, country, punk rock, and other genres.
Wayne Horvitz is an American composer, keyboardist and record producer. He came to prominence in the Downtown scene of 1980s and '90s New York City, noted for working with John Zorn's Naked City among others. Horvitz has since relocated to the Seattle, Washington area where he has several ongoing groups and has worked as an adjunct professor of composition at Cornish College of the Arts.
Eyvindur Y. Kang is a composer and violist. He was raised in Canada and the United States, and has since lived and worked in countries ranging from Italy to Iceland.
The Big Gundown is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.
Grand Guignol is the second full-length studio album released by John Zorn's band Naked City in 1992 on the Japanese Avant label. The album followed Torture Garden, which was a compilation of "hardcore miniatures" from Naked City and Grand Guignol. The album is notable for the inclusion of cover versions of pieces written by classical composers, the guest vocal of Bob Dorough, and also, like Torture Garden, a selection of "hardcore miniatures" which are intense, fast-tempo, brief compositions, which feature the wailing of Zorn's alto sax, and the screams of Yamatsuka Eye. The album is titled after the infamous Grand Guignol theater in Paris, which was open from 1897 to 1962, where performances centered around extreme violence.
Heretic is the third studio album by the band Naked City, used as a soundtrack for the underground S/M film Jeux des Dames Cruelles. The album utilises different combinations of band members in duos and trios with the entire band performing together on only one track "Fire and Ice".
Radio is the fourth studio album by the band Naked City, and their first to be composed entirely by bandleader John Zorn. The album was also released as part of Naked City: The Complete Studio Recordings on Tzadik Records in 2005.
Filmworks 1986–1990 features the first released film scores of John Zorn. The album was originally released on the Japanese labels Wave and Eva in 1990, on the Nonesuch Records label in 1992, and subsequently re-released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 1997 after being out of print for several years.
"For Zorn, filmscores have always been a place to experiment, and the FilmWorks Series is in many ways a microcosm of his prodigious output. This original installment of the FilmWorks Series presents three scores ranging from punk-rockabilly ; a jazzy Bernard Herrmann fantasy; to a quirky classical/improv/world music amalgam for Raul Ruiz's bizarre film The Golden Boat. Zorn's infamous one-minute arrangement of Morricone's classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, is included as a bonus track. This is the place where it all began."
Torture Garden is an album by John Zorn's band Naked City featuring Yamatsuka Eye on vocals. The album is a compilation of the "hardcore miniatures" that were also released on Naked City and Grand Guignol. The album was originally released on vinyl and cassette by Shimmy Disc and on CD by Toy's Factory. Following controversy over Naked City's album covers, it was re-released in 1996 on Tzadik Records with Leng Tch'e simply as Black Box. The tracks were also released as part of Naked City: The Complete Studio Recordings in 2005.
Naked City Live is a live album recorded by Naked City in 1989 and released on John Zorn's Tzadik label in 2002. All of the songs, with the exception of "Erotico", "The Way I Feel" and "Skate Key", were later recorded in the studio for the band's debut album. To date it is the only official live release by the band.
Black Box is a compilation album by John Zorn's band Naked City featuring Yamatsuka Eye on vocals. The album is a collection of the "hardcore miniatures" from Naked City and Grand Guignol that were originally released on Torture Garden in 1990 and the extended piece Leng Tch'e which was only released in Japan in 1992. This compilation was released on Tzadik Records in 1996.
New Traditions in East Asian Bar Bands is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn consisting of improvised music from paired instruments and narration in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. The pieces are listed individually within Zorn's game pieces and were composed in 1986, 1988 and 1990 respectively.
This discography features albums released by guitarist Bill Frisell, released recordings of bands and projects he was/is a member of, and albums on which he appears as guest musician. Labels and dates indicate first release.
Before We Were Born is the first album by Bill Frisell to be released on the Elektra Nonesuch label. It was released in 1989 and features performances by Frisell, Hank Roberts, Kermit Driscoll, and Joey Baron with guest appearances by Arto Lindsay, Peter Scherer, Julius Hemphill, Billy Drewes, Doug Wieselman, and Cyro Baptista.
Is That You? is the second album by Bill Frisell to be released on the Elektra Nonesuch label. It was released in 1990 and features performances by Frisell, Wayne Horvitz and Joey Baron who were also members of Naked City.
Absinthe is the final recording from the band Naked City. Unlike the band's other genre-mixing releases, the music on Absinthe is consistently in an ambient and noise style.
Miracle Mile is an album by American keyboardist and composer Wayne Horvitz's band The President recorded in 1992 and released on the Elektra/Nonesuch label.
