John Zorn is one of the pillars of the downtown NYC art rock/jazz fusion crowd that has also included saxophonist David Sanborn, percussionist David Van Teighem, and all-around cool guy and leader of The Lounge Lizards, John Lurie. He has appeared on a startling number of albums in a wide range of styles, almost all of them strident and difficult to listen to, and has been criticized by some as being opportunistic and taking credit where credit is not due. Whatever, it’s a scene I don’t care for so I’ll leave it to the black-clad intellectuals to sort out.
One of his most interesting projects, Naked City includes guitarist Bill Frissell and Yamatsuka Eye, a scorched tonsil vocalist from the legendary Japanese noise band, The Boredoms (Japan has a proud tradition of noise bands – in fact, my buddy Bob, who lived in Japan for six years and put me up when I came to visit, won a record contract through Sony Japan with his almost unlistenable (sorry, Bob) noise band Pou-Fou). Although there are several pleasant moments on this first Naked City disc – including a surprisingly straight read of Ennio Morricone’s The Sicilian – the meat of this album is this kind of sonic gristle. Now, I’m all for noise and chaos, but I find that a little goes a very long way. That’s why I love this track and the others like it on this album. It’s short and sharp and hysterically funny. This track in particular, with its seizure inducing transitions from cornpone country and western to soul searing subway squeals of death and back again, almost always makes me laugh. It’s so absurd and incongruous and deranged in a surreal post-modern sort of way that it’s impossible to take seriously. Too bad Zorn doesn’t crack a smile more often, it’s much more refreshing and enjoyable than his purely serious excursions into the edges of listenability.