JAZZOLA: James Chance
eye WEEKLY
eye WEEKLY April 13 1995
Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday
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JAZZOLA JAZZOLA
THE CONTORTIONS
Thursday, April 13.
Sneaky Dee's, 431 College St.
$11 from Record Peddler, Rotate This, Sonic Temple, Vortex and
Ticketmaster, 870-8000.
THE MUSIC OF CHANCE
Sax maniac James Chance contorts himself one more time
by
TIM POWIS
Back in 1976, a nervy white kid by the name of James Siegfried packed
off to New York City, alto sax in hand. His goal was to play free jazz,
a type of music that was and likely still is hugely unpopular in his
old hometown of Milwaukee. It wasn't a big draw in NYC either, but at
least that city was in the throes of a "loft scene" which found various
free-jazz practitioners playing gigs in each other's living rooms for
untidy sums of money. One denizen of that scene was David Murray, now
one of jazz's pre-eminent tenor saxophonists.
"David Murray never played with me, but I studied with him when I first
came to New York," recalls James over the phone from his Manhattan pad.
"In fact, the first lesson I had with him, we talked for a while and I
played my horn a little bit. And he said, `Hey man, you're not even
gonna be playin' that horn for very long. You're gonna be a fuckin'
rock star!' At that time I had no plans to be a rock star. I totally
shrugged it off; I thought, `This guy's nuts.' And he was right!"
Well, not exactly. Adopting the name James Chance, young Siegfried, who
also frequented NYC's punk-rock hotspot CBGB, continued to play sax --
but eventually he took up singing (after a fashion) as well and formed
a "rock" group called the Contortions. Even upon becoming the most
notorious (and danceable) of New York's wilfully cacophonous No Wave
bands (such as DNA and Lydia Lunch's Teenage Jesus & The Jerks), the
Contortions weren't about to propel anyone to what is commonly thought
of as rock stardom, though Chance did build a sizeable "anti-star" rep
among jaded boho types who needed a final nihilistic fix as punk rock's
jackboot vigor attenuated into New Wave piddle-dinkery.
When I caught the Contortions at the Horseshoe in the summer of 1978
(their first show outside New York), they played a mere half-hour's
worth of backbeat-driven noise-barrage; at centre stage Chance
alternately squealed with atonal fervor in the upper register of his
alto and, taking his James Brown obsession to a livid post- punk
extreme, bellowed out misanthropic lyrics until it looked like blood
would gush from his follicles. Between songs he hurled abuse at the
flabbergasted spectators, calling us "wimpy pieces of shit" for not
dancing. "Why don't you all go back to your be-yoo-tiful, clean, clean
homes," he suggested mid-set, "turn on your TVs ... and jerk off!"
I was smitten. When the Eno-produced No Wave compilation No New York
(which began with four Contortions songs) emerged soon after, I rushed
out to buy a copy. Not surprisingly, in that album's back-cover array
of No Wave mug shots Chance has a black eye.
But time can really mellow a fellow. Nowadays Chance is an affable guy
who says, "Toronto was always a really good city for me," despite the
fact that he spent the night of that historic Horseshoe gig in jail.
And after several years of near- invisibility, during which time Chance
spent quality time with his cats and read lots of true crime books to
his girlfriend ("The bloodier the better," he says), American
Recordings' new reissue imprint Infinite Zero has re-released the 1979
album Buy The Contortions. Also on the way are Off-White ('79) and Sax
Maniac ('82) by the Contortions' alter-ego disco band James White
(a.k.a. Chance) and the Blacks, as well as an eponymous mid-'80s
recording (previously released only in Europe) of Chance's
mostly-instrumental combo, the Flaming Demonics.
Among those various projects, an impressive cast of musicians has
crossed paths with Chance: from the Buy-era Contortions, guitarist Jody
Harris went on to join the Raybeats and Golden Palominos, guitarist Pat
Place formed the Bush Tetras and bassist David Hofstra turned up all
over downtown NY, including in the late, great Microscopic Septet. Two
members of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time (guitarist Bern Nix and bassist
Al McDowell) have performed with Chance, as has Defunkt's
leader/singer/trombonist Joe Bowie.
"Musicians are always eager to play with me," says Chance. "I guess
they find my music challenging. It's funky, but the way it's written is
kinda turned around from the way regular funk is. I don't write with
chords; I write like a melody for each instrument and it all fits
together -- which I kind of got from James Brown, but even though he
used that approach it was still over a regular chord structure. So I
kind of freed it from the chord structure."
The new four-piece incarnation of the Contortions includes guitarist
Jerry Agony (a.k.a. Jerry Antonius, who played on Sax Machine), and
fellow alto saxist Luther Thomas (an old associate of Chance and Joe
Bowie), along with newcomers Tony Alimony (drums) and Eric Klarstad
(bass). Expect to hear vintage Contortions songs, assorted covers and
new Chance songs in roughly equal measure.
And how do those new songs sound? "They're very funky," says Chance,
"and they're still as intense, but they're a little more, I dunno ..."
-- this next word is plainly painful for him to utter -- "refined."
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