Naked City
Background information
Origin	New York City, USA
Genre(s)	Avant-garde Free jazz Experimental rock
Years active	1989–1992 Brief 2003 reunion.
Label(s)	Elektra Nonesuch Avant Tzadik
Members
John Zorn Bill Frisell Wayne Horvitz Fred Frith Joey Baron
Former members
Yamatsuka Eye Mike Patton

This article is about the band. For the John Zorn album featuring the band, see Naked City (album). For the American TV series of the 1960s, see Naked City (TV series).

Naked City was an avant-garde music group led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Active primarily in New York City in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Naked City was initiated by Zorn as a "composition workshop" [1] to test the limits of composition (and improvisation) in a traditional rock band lineup. Its music incorporated recognizable elements of jazz, grindcore, surf music, classical music, heavy metal, country music, punk rock and literally dozens of other music genres. Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_States. ... Nickname: Big Apple; City that never Sleeps; Gotham Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Manhattan Queens Brooklyn Staten Island Settled 1613 Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area    - City 1,214. ... A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or basic musical language (van der Merwe 1989, p. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... Free jazz is a movement of jazz music characterized by diminished dependence on formal constraints. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Art rock. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, and today operates under Atlantic Records Group. ... Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. ... John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in NYC, USA) is an avant-garde Jewish American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist. ... William Richard Bill Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist and composer. ... Wayne Horvitz is a composer and keyboard player. ... Fred Frith performing at the Moers Jazz Festival, 1 June 1998. ... Joey Baron (born June 26, 1955 in Richmond, Virginia) is a jazz drummer probably best known for his work with Bill Frisell, Stan Getz, and John Zorn. ... Yamatsuka Eye (山塚アイ, born 1964 in Kobe) is a Japanese vocalist. ... Mike Patton (born Michael Allan Patton, January 27, 1968, in Eureka, California) is an American musician. ... Naked City is a 1989 album by John Zorn, featuring the band of the same name. ... Naked City was a television series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in NYC, USA) is an avant-garde Jewish American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist. ... Nickname: Big Apple; City that never Sleeps; Gotham Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Manhattan Queens Brooklyn Staten Island Settled 1613 Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area    - City 1,214. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form that originated around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in African American musical styles blended with Western music technique and theory. ... Grindcore, also known as grind, is an evolution of hardcore punk, most commonly associated with death metal and crust punk. ... Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture. ... Classical music is the sweeping term applied to the musical tradition that is undethered and almost diametrically opposed to the popular music of contemporary culture. ... Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1969 and 1974,[1] mixed blues and rock music to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised... country music, see Country music (disambiguation) Country music, also known as country and western music or country-western, is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or basic musical language (van der Merwe 1989, p. ...

History

An embryonic version of Naked City appeared on Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary (1990). Zorn was joined by singer Yamatsuka Eye, guitarist Robert Quine, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and drummer Ted Epstien, for a spastic, caterwauling version of The Stooges "T.V. Eye". Yamatsuka Eye (山塚アイ, born 1964 in Kobe) is a Japanese vocalist. ... Robert Quine (December 30, 1942 - May 31, 2004), a native of Akron, Ohio, was a guitarist known for his innovative guitar solos. ... Bill Laswell (born February 12, 1955 in Salem, Illinois and raised in Albion, Michigan) is an American bassist, producer and record label owner. ... The Stooges are an American rock band that was first active from about 1967 to 1974, and then reformed in 2003. ...

In Naked City's characteristic early style, songs were often performed at astonishingly fast tempi (drawing heavily on thrash metal and hardcore punk's emphasis on extreme speed). Many songs were quite brief, and typically switched musical genres every few measures, perhaps comparable to spinning a radio dial at random and hearing the same band performing on every station. One critic described Naked City's music as "jump-cutting micro-collages of hardcore, Country, sleazy jazz, covers of John Barry and Ornette Coleman, brief abstract tussles — a whole city crammed into two or three minute bursts." [2] This fast-change tendency was inspired in part by Carl Stalling — a Zorn favorite — who wrote music for many Warner Brothers cartoons (featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and others); music that featured frequent shifts in tempo, theme and style. In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for time) is the speed or pace of a given piece. ... Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music, one of the extreme metal subgenres, that is characterised by its high speed and aggression. ... Hardcore punk is a subgenre of punk rock which originated in the United States of America in the late 1970s. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Hardcore punk is a subgenre of punk rock which originated in the United States of America in the late 1970s. ... country music, see Country music (disambiguation) Country music, also known as country and western music or country-western, is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form that originated around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in African American musical styles blended with Western music technique and theory. ... John Barry, OBE (born John Barry Prendergast on November 3, 1933 in York, England) is considered one of the Big Four of modern film composers (the others being John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and Henry Mancini). ... Ornette Coleman (born March 19, 1930) is an American saxophonist and composer. ... Carl W. Stalling (November 10, 1892–November 29, 1972) was a noted composer and arranger of music for animated cartoons. ... Warner Bros. ... A cartoon is any of several forms of illustrations, with varied meanings that evolved from one to another. ... Bugs Bunny is an Academy Award-winning fictional street-smart anthropomorphic gray rabbit who appears in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated films produced by Warner Bros. ... Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. ...

Naked City's eponymous first album was distributed by Elektra Nonesuch and featured a famous Weegee photograph of a dead gangster on its cover along with macabre illustrations by Suehiro Maruo. There disagreement between Zorn and the label over cover art on subsequent albums: Zorn wanted to use explicit S&M pictures, images from 19th century medical archives, and execution photos, most notoriously of a Leng Tch'e victim; Elektra Nonesuch refused. Zorn ended his relationship with Elektra, releasing subsequent Naked City albums on Shimmy Disc or his own Avant and Tzadik labels. Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, and today operates under Atlantic Records Group. ... Weegee photograph, The Critic, November 22, 1943, first published in LIFE Magazine, December 6, 1943. ... Maruo Suehiro (丸尾末広; Maruo Suehiro) (born January 28, 1956 in Nagasaki, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist, illustrator, and painter. ... A collar is a common symbol in BDSM. BDSM is any of a number of related patterns of human sexual behavior. ... Língchí (pinyin for Chinese 凌遲/凌迟; also ling che) is a form of execution used in China before the modern era and is usually known in English as slicing or death by a thousand cuts. The literal meaning of língchí is humiliating and slow; the method was officially outlawed in... Shimmy Disc is an influencial New York City based record label founded by Mark Kramer (or Kramer as he is famously known internationally, and was known years before the fictional character of the same name was invented). ... See Tzadik for other meanings of the word. ...

Naked City varied their stylistic approach on later releases. The cover repertoire was expanded to include various modern classical composers such as Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, Charles Ives, and Olivier Messiaen, whose works are featured on the album Grand Guignol. Leng T'che featured a single piece, over 31 minutes in length, of gruelingly slow heavy metal. Torture Garden was made up of several "BDSM miniatures," and Absinthe was all ambient textures. Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин; sometimes transliterated as Skryabin) (6 January 1872 – 27 April 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. ... Claude Debussy, ca. ... Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American composer of classical music. ... Olivier Messiaen Olivier Messiaen (IPA: ; born December 10, 1908 in Avignon, France; died April 27, 1992 in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. ... Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1969 and 1974,[1] mixed blues and rock music to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised... A collar is a common symbol in BDSM. BDSM is any of a number of related patterns of human sexual behavior. ... Absinthe is the final recording from the band Naked City. ... Ambient music is a loosely defined musical genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles - including jazz, electronic music, new age, rock and roll, modern classical music, reggae, traditional, world and even noise. ...

Naked City found perhaps their greatest following among the fans of the many death metal, metal and grindcore bands with which they performed, such as Blind Idiot God, Napalm Death, Carcass and Live Skull. Death metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal that evolved out of thrash metal during the early 1980s. ... Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1969 and 1974,[1] mixed blues and rock music to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised... Grindcore, also known as grind, is an evolution of hardcore punk, most commonly associated with death metal and crust punk. ... Blind Idiot God was an instrumental rock trio formed in New York City in the late 1980s by Andy Hawkins (guitar), Gabe Katz (bass guitar) and Ted Epstein (drums). ... Napalm Death is a grindcore/death metal band formed in the village of Meriden near Birmingham, England in 1982 by Nicholas Bullen and Miles Ratledge. ... Carcass was a British death metal/goregrind band formed by Napalm Death guitarist Bill Steer together with drummer Ken Owen in 1985. ...

Naked City was discontinued when Zorn stopped "thinking in terms of" the band. ^{[citation needed]} A brief reunion occurred in 2003 for a few shows at European jazz festivals.

Band members

• John Zorn: saxophone, composer, bandleader.
• Bill Frisell: guitar
• Wayne Horvitz: synthesizer, piano
• Fred Frith: bass guitar
• Joey Baron: drums

with: John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in NYC, USA) is an avant-garde Jewish American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist. ... Saxophones of different sizes play in different registers. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... William Richard Bill Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist and composer. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Wayne Horvitz is a composer and keyboard player. ... A synthesizer (or synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument designed to produce electronically generated sound, using techniques such as additive, subtractive, FM, physical modelling synthesis, or phase distortion. ... A grand piano, with the lid up. ... Fred Frith performing at the Moers Jazz Festival, 1 June 1998. ... Martin EB18 Bass Guitar in flight case. ... Joey Baron (born June 26, 1955 in Richmond, Virginia) is a jazz drummer probably best known for his work with Bill Frisell, Stan Getz, and John Zorn. ... A drum kit (or drum set or trap set) is mostly a collection of drums, cymbals and sometimes other percussion instruments arranged for convenient playing by a single drummer. ...

• Yamatsuka Eye: voice
• Mike Patton: voice (mostly for live shows)

Yamatsuka Eye (山塚アイ, born 1964 in Kobe) is a Japanese vocalist. ... Mike Patton (born Michael Allan Patton, January 27, 1968, in Eureka, California) is an American musician. ...

Discography

• Naked City - 1989
• Grand Guignol - 1991
• Heretic - 1992
• Radio - 1993
• Absinthe - 1993
• Black Box (contains the albums Torture Garden and Leng Tch'e, which were originally released only in Japan) - 1996
• Naked City Live - 2002
• Naked City Box Set - 2005

Naked City is a 1989 album by John Zorn, featuring the band of the same name. ... Grand Guignol is the third album released by Naked City. ... Absinthe is the final recording from the band Naked City. ...

External links

• Naked City in Omnology
• Naked City in Xtreme Music
• Naked City at Rey Por un Día (spanish)
• Naked City index