Naked City

by

John Zorn

Edit

this is the album that really got me seriously into jazz. I'll wait a minute to let you gasp....

Now, let me explain myself. I bought Naked City in the summer before my freshman year in High School. My father, a former professional, now part-time jazz trombonist played jazz around the house 24/7 and I enjoyed it but didn't really listen to it that much myself. I went to several summer camps focused on jazz improv and I tended to be pretty decent without really listening to the music. The music that I did listen to was hardcore punk rock. The kind where the more bands you know that no one else did, the cooler you are (ever heard of Demon System 13, INDK...yeah thats right). I was a lot more open-minded than others who listen to that music but I still didn't care too much about other music.

Then I listened to Naked City and I was blown away. Someone had bridged the gap between jazz in all of its forms and hardcore. This was some scary s---! All of a sudden I started buying jazz cds like crazy and I have never looked back since. Thanks John for making me an open-minded listener and allowing me to be an individual!

The cover of this album is a man who has just been shot. Either by himself or another, it is not clear. Like the murder of this man, this music is violent, intriguing, but ultimately pointless. I have never met another person in the world that actually liked this guy besides myself.

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HOWEVER, if you are interested in John Zorn (aka Masada, Naked City, Painkiller, etc) then there is nothing anyone can do to stop you until you have heard it, and why not? The thing is, John Zorn exists in a very weird place in music. He is halfway in the Jazz section and halfway in the pop section. Look in an indie record store if you don't believe me. He even sometimes makes it into the 20th century composers section along with Morton Feldman, John Cage and Philip Glass.

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Forget Harmony Korine, John Zorn is the original Ritalin kid. There are so many rhythm changes that your head will spin. My advice is this: if you are coming from mostly a classical/jazz background, you might want to start with "Duras: Duchamp" or "The Big Gundown" (if you liked pop music back in the day) as your first experience. If you are coming form a mostly pop/rock background, this is the best album for you. Why the difference? Well, if you like angry-sounding music (like metal or hardcore punk) then this disk won't be completely alien to you. You'll start with the tracks that are more familiar in sound and work up to some of the more jazzy tracks like "The Sicilian Clan" which is also on "The Big Gundown." I'm still not sure what I make of John Zorn.

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He's like Radiohead in a way. I only like listening to Radiohead when I've been dumped, and when I have just been dumped, Radiohead is the best album in the world...otherwise, Radiohead stays on the shelf. If I have been made manic by deadlines and work, then John Zorn is the only album that I want to listen to. But if you played this when I was sitting in a field looking at clouds (yeah, as if I have ever done that) then this album would likely just be a headache-inducing mess. Should you buy it? Well it's good music, but your world won't end if you don't have it. Then again, how many times has the world ever ended?

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Besides, why would you buy something you didn't like?