Of all of the bands that came out of New York City’s No Wave music scene, my faves have always been James Chance (aka James White) and the Contortions. The Contortions combined the atonal jazz skronk of Chance’s blurting and squealing alto saxophone with broken-glass-sharp shards of guitar, played atop one very funky bottom. I preferred Chance because you could actually dance to his music, agitated as it was, because in his own special way he never abandoned that James Brown groove—he just tortured it a bit.
How Chance’s sax stands up to that of “serious” jazz players is open to debate; while he briefly studied under the great David Murray, I think of Chance as an outlier, what with his brief tenure in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, James Brown screams, nihilistic world view, and frequently antagonistic interactions with the very people who paid money to see him play live. These very “punk” attributes certainly separated him from the likes of his free jazz contemporaries, whose style he incorporated into his own playing. But the bottom line, when it comes to comparisons between Chance and the many other purveyors of free jazz is this: Can the guy actually play his horn, of is he just one very ballsy but amateurish poseur?
I asked my brother Jeffrey, a world-renowned free jazz expert, and this is what he said: “Regarding James Chance, I’m not quite sure where to rank him. Sonically, his alto falls neatly in the Luther Thomas/Noah Howard/Albert Ayler range. Chops-wise, I don’t think there’s a big enough pool of recorded material, especially material where he really stretches out, to see how good he really is, or could have been. That said, I think he’s ridiculously interesting, and captivating, as a soloist. What may have started as a joke, or a goof, very well could have morphed into something far greater.
John Lurie, who began in much the same vein, over time developed into an incredibly articulate player/composer. He outgrew the caricature he first presented himself as to become, in the end, a fine altoist whose sound fit hand in glove with his compositional skills. If James Chance ever played/recorded with some of the more jazz-oriented No Wave players, I think he could have done much the same thing. Imagine him sitting in with the Free Lancing-era James Blood Ulmer trio; that could have been the crucible. As it stands, however, you treat him as a joke at your own disservice.”
Hey, makes sense to me. And in the end, I can listen to Buy, Chance and the Contortions’ full-length 1979 debut, and not really care whether he’s a huckster or the real McCoy. The atonal onslaught of Chance, guitarists Jody Harris and Pat Place, bassist David Hofstra, and drummer Don Christensen is both dizzying and therapeutic; the squealing and screaming, fractured funk, and fucked-up guitar noise all conspire to produce a very spasmodic sound that you can nevertheless move your body to. Just listen to the sheets of killer guitar noise on the landmark “Contort Yourself,” on which Chance vocally lets out some truly contorted screams, that is when he’s not going totally atonal on the alto saxophone. But the song’s secret weapon is its funky backbone, which makes it possible for you to actually dance to the fucker. No wonder the Discogs web site describes the Contortions as playing “No Wave, Disco.” Play that funky music, James White boy!
The guitar and sax noise is also put to the dance test on the manifesto “I Don’t Want to Be Happy,” which features some great bass runs by Hofstra, cool keyboards by Chance, and one rock steady beat that, yes, will get you off your ass. Chance’s nihilistic rejection of happiness reminds me of what Lydia Lunch had to say about No Wave: “The whole fucking country was nihilistic. What did we come out of? The lie of the Summer of Love into Charles Manson and the Vietnam War. Where is the positivity?” “Designed to Kill” is heavy on the funk, and boasts Chance’s freaky sax runs punctuated by some very Helter Skelter guitar work. Big sheets of angular six-string noise, some other guitars that go boing!, and Chance’s vocals are all designed to kill, and they do.
“Bedroom Athlete” is nonstop chaos, starting with some saxophonic acrobatics by Chance and proceeding, above one impossibly funkadelicized beat, to flail around, with the guitars making a great syncopated scratching noise while Chance delivers on the vocal front. And the song’s chaotic close is to die for. “My Infatuation” is a slow number highlighting some pounding drums, to say nothing of some guitars that have wandered far from the reservation of good taste. Meanwhile Chance sings and plays a solo that has an almost Middle Eastern feel to it. “Anesthetic” is another slow one, with Chance’s sax weaving sinuously as a cobra across some stripped down percussion and sprung guitar sounds.
“Throw Me Away” is as funky as they come, a fast-paced number that features Chance singing over some truly fucked-up guitar noise and his own sax. He follows his sax solo with a scream, barks out the vocals, and it’s all over too soon and you’re listening to “Roving Eyes,” on which the guitarists sound like they want to end Western Civilization as we know it while the bass lopes along and Chance offers up some truly frenetic saxophone. He also tosses in some keyboards, you know, to add texture to the end of the world. Meanwhile a guitarist plays, wonder of wonders, an actual solo over which Chance does some Olympic-class screaming. As for “Twice Removed,” it opens on a quiet note, and comes very close to sounding like a “real” free jazz number. “I’ve been washed out/And left to dry,” sings Chance, as his keyboard and the guitarists quietly go haywire, all the while tethered to a bass as unmovable as an NFL offensive tackle.
The post-Contortions Chance has popped up here, there, and everywhere, and even resurrected the Contortions to release 2016’s The Flesh Is Weak. Over the years I’ve enjoyed his takes on James Brown’s “King Heroin,” “Cold Sweat,” and “Super Bad,” and I love the tunes “White Cannibal” and “The Splurge,” to name just a few. In short Chance continues to demonstrate what my jazzbo brother said: “you treat him as a joke at your disservice.” Jazz aesthetes may never claim him as one of their own, but how many jazz aesthetes make music that actually makes you want to shake your ass? Contort yourselves, brothers and sisters; it’s a dance rage for the ages.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
