Naked City cover

Naked City

Released

The 1990 debut by Zorn’s quintet — Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass, Joey Baron on drums, with Boredoms vocalist Eye Yamatsuka howling and shrieking up front — brought his jump-cut aesthetic out of the New York avant-garde and onto college radio. His own furious compositions, which caromed from country to free jazz to dub to grindcore with little narrative logic but energy to spare, were balanced by romantic versions of movie themes from Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, and more, plus a take on Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” that features a driving rock backbeat.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Indent cover

Indent

Cecil Taylor
Live At Downtown Music Gallery cover

Live At Downtown Music Gallery

Keiji Haino, Loren Connors
Live at Firehouse 12 cover

Live at Firehouse 12

Gerald Cleaver, Violet Hour
Dogon A.D. cover

Dogon A.D.

Julius Hemphill
Compassion cover

Compassion

Linda Oh, Tyshawn Sorey, Vijay Iyer
What Now? cover

What Now?

John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Chris Potter
Street Talk cover

Street Talk

Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Saxophone Summit, David Liebman
Elastic Wave cover

Elastic Wave

Gard Nilssen’s Acoustic Unity