Naked City (band)
Avant-garde group fusing jazz, metal, punk, and classical.
John Zorn, a saxophonist and composer, led the avant-garde group Naked City, which was based in New York City and operated between 1988 and 1993.[1] The group's sound combined soundtrack themes, bluesy hard bop, fast hardcore rock, free jazz with squealing elements, and metallic funk.[2] Songs were often very short and would change musical genre multiple times within a few measures.[3]
Quick Facts
- Years active
- 1988–1993 (brief 2003 reunion)
- Origin
- New York City, New York, United States
- Genre
- Avant-garde
- grindcore
- avant-garde metal
- free jazz
- experimental
- Label
- Elektra Nonesuch
- Avant
- Earache
- Tzadik
- Past members
- John Zorn
- Bill Frisell
- Fred Frith
- Wayne Horvitz
- Joey Baron
- Yamatsuka Eye
Facts from the source article.
Making and release
The band was named after a 1945 book of graphic black and white photographs by Weegee.[2] Zorn started Naked City as a "composition workshop" to explore the boundaries of composing within a conventional rock band setup.[1] In 1992 the group put out Leng Tch'e, which consisted of a single piece that ran a little over thirty minutes.[4] Radio, issued in 1993, marked the first Naked City album where all compositions were written solely by Zorn.[4]
The final album, Absinthe (1993), mixed ambient noise-style pieces with tracks named after works by Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire.[5]
What the cited sources add
A 1989 New York Times review by Pareles noted that the band's early style drew on thrash metal and hardcore punk's focus on extreme speed.[2] That article also said this rapid genre-switching approach was partly influenced by Carl Stalling, who composed music for many Warner Bros. cartoons.[3] Zorn explained that his interest in hard-core drove him to write increasingly shorter pieces, as recorded in the 1999 book The Muse that Sings.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Naked City (band)" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Naked City (band)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Pareles J. Cut-and-Paste Sounds from John Zorn Group, New York Times, February 27, 1989. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Naked City (band)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "John Zorn's Naked City", Scottmaykrantz.com, 1993-08-20 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Naked City (band)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Deupree, C. Allmusic Review: "Heretic"; accessed November 4, 2013.; Gilman, M. Allmusic Review: Black Box, accessed November 4, 2013.; Rikard, M. Allmusic Review: Radio; accessed November 4, 2013. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Naked City (band)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Deupree, C. Allmusic Review: Absinthe, accessed November 4, 2013. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Naked City (band)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: McCutchan, A. (1999) The Muse that Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process, pg. 161, Oxford University Press: New York. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Naked City (band) (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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