The group Zorn assembled for the material recorded on Naked City would later become a band in its own right known under the same name; the lineup was Zorn on alto saxophone with Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The group was established in 1988 as a "compositional workshop" to test the limitations of a rock band format. The album consists of several covers of movie themes, one jazz standard, and original compositions by Zorn, including several “hardcore miniatures” which would later be compiled on the album Torture Garden. The project, especially on this album, was noted for wildly juxtaposing various musical genres in rapid succession. The album’s cover art features Weegee’s 1940 photograph “Corpse With Revolver”; Weegee’s 1945 book gave the band its name. Also featured are macabre illustrations by manga artist Mauro Suehiro.
Release
The album was released the Warner Music label Elektra/Nonesuch, which Zorn had previously released albums for; the subsequent releases of the Naked City group would be released on smaller labels like Shimmy Disc, and Zorn’s own Tzadik and Avant labels. The album was later rereleased as part of the box set on Tzadik Records in 2005.
Reception
The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 5 stars stating "The stimulating music rewards repeated listenings by more open-minded listeners." Jon Pareles observed in The New York Times that "Mr. Zorn doesn't bother with transitions. While he and his musicians create every sudden textural shift themselves, without technological assistance, his guides are the splice, the jump cut, the video edit - not to mention the jack-in-the-box and its more sinister relatives in funhouses and horror movies. In his music, coherence is barely more than propinquity; one sound or style simply doesn't predict the next." Guy Peters stated "John Zorn’s Naked City-project was about the most far out you could get, and Zorn’s exploration of what he “could come up with given the limitations of the simple sax, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums-format” became the pinnacle of avant coolness... The result was a post-modern hybrid that cut up sequences as he saw fit and treated all genres equally: jazz, grindcore and country & western, were allowed to coexist, even in the same song." Christopher Thelen noted "While Naked City is certainly groundbreaking, it hardly is for everybody. The faint-hearted will be running for the exits before Zorn and crew can really get warmed up; purists of jazz, rock, and possibly even grindcore might consider the marriage of several styles of music sacrilegious. Possibly. But for the rest of us, Naked City represents unbridled energy, passion and possibly even anger channeled into music. The resulting noise is sheer joy to those who get it, and sheer madness to those who don't." Pitchfork Media ranked this album at 47 on their Top 100 Albums of the 1980s list. Their review of The Complete Studio Recordings stated "On Naked City, Zorn introduced an amped-up surf/lounge/punk band featuring downtown New York's biggest talents, who blast and din through the 'James Bond' theme song, the theme to Chinatown, and a sound portrait of New Orleans' Latin Quarter – and then right when they slip into a groove, out of nowhere, the band launches punishing blasts of noise and catastrophe, flaming wreckage that blows up and collapses on a dime."
