JAMES CHANCE AND THE CONTORTIONS, January
26, 2018, El Cortez, Brooklyn NY
by John
Pietaro
James Chance (right) with two Contortions, El Cortez, Brooklyn NY (photo by John Pietaro)
If Dada represented
the destruction of art as we knew it during the first World War, then No Wave
was its latter-century counterpart, and James Chance our own Marcel Duchamp. Cabaret
Voltaire may be lost but bits of it are apparently sprinkled on the streets of
Bushwick.
Brooklyn’s
El Cortez was filled with an audience in anticipation of the No Wave auter’s
first New York performance billed as James Chance and the Contortions in many
years. Chance experienced a rush of attention early on when, in 1978, his band
was heard on the iconic album ‘No New York’. In the decades since, he survived a
myriad of turbulence, starting with the 1981 death of significant other Anya
Phillips as well as a series of professional disappointments. Through it all,
he’s managed to release music which foresaw the rise of the avant-punk
movement, embraced free jazz and formulated a brand of funk weaned on Ornette
Coleman’s Prime Time that pointed the way forward for Defunkt. He garnered
attention with onstage contorted dance moves, but more so, with the unique
practice of slapping audience members braving the front row. Chance would later
say that his moderate violence was but a means to awaken the crowd, but some responses
to this saw the outbreak of throw-down fisticuffs, bloody noses and busted
chops. But he kept playing, regardless of the wounds. Tours in the 1980s and
‘90s included noted members of Ornette Coleman’s coveted circle in a
reformulated Contortions; here Chance was able to fully realize his vision in a
way impossible with the original band. Regular European gigs led to a second
home in Paris where he increasingly came to spend most of his days. Even there,
the music was permeated by various periods of silence.
Adding to
the excitement at El Cortez was an opening act of note: Martin Bisi, founder
and producer of Material. While Chance was subject to the punk ghetto, Material
became downtown darlings in the arts community, then Bisi scored big by
producing Herbie Hancock’s massive hit “Rockit”. The house appeared well versed
in his lore and filled the front area, rollicking to the raw electronics,
digital delays and Bisi vocals run through effects. By the time this explosive
set ended, all were ready for the main attraction (a full review of Bisi’s set
can be found in an upcoming column by this writer).
As club
staff re-set the stage, deliciously edgy ‘80s sounds tore through the PA, up
from out of the time and space underground. The already crowded house began
packing tightly. With nowhere to leave coats, audience members either wore them
or held onto the bulky winter wear, and within moments the area anywhere near
the stage was inflamed with body heat and anticipation. The thickening crowd mixed
hipster youth with 60- and 50-somethings old enough to recall when Ford told
New York to Drop Dead. Contortions, as the case may be, were up onstage prepping:
Richard Dworkin, Chance’s talented drummer since ‘85 (also a founder of the
Microscopic Septet), tenor saxophonist/keyboard player Robert Aaron who has
also been a long-time member, and a truly swinging trumpeter that may or may
not have been Mac Gollehon who’d added powerful lead lines and solos to
Chance’s latest album. Most unfortunately, the band's bassist canceled with scant notice.
The leader
walked toward the stage, head angled downward with his signature pompadour ever
present, though a bit worse for the wear. A pinkish sport jacket hung a bit
uncomfortably over a gappy green shirt, and, characteristically, he
acknowledged no one in the crowd. After wriggling to the front, Chance made his
way onstage and sans any fanfare the band kicked into a Latin-tinged dance
piece. Chance, walking the very edge of the stage, offered just a hint of the
spastic-styled dancing he’d crafted years prior. But as the piece throbbed and
pulsated, it became clear that, though not
lip-syncing, the band was playing along with its own recorded instrumental
tracks. This practice lasted for several numbers during which Chance crooned in a
voice matured to somewhere between David Johansen and Tom Waits.
Once the
recorded tracks were dropped, the absence of a bassist and guitarist became all
too obvious. Aaron moved to the keyboard but stood shakily before rapidly declining
into overt staggering and stumbling. As Chance exchanged his alto for a seat at
the keyboard, he painstakingly tried to continue the performance. But the spectacle
of a teetering band member under some heavy influence, unable to play anything,
was all too obvious. Such adverse conditions might have driven other performers
to simply end the gig, but this leader’s skin was well thickened by life on the
burnt-out, abandoned Lower East Side of old. As a member of the club’s staff
struggled to keep Aaron safely in a chair, Chance attempted to draw the
audience’s attention back to his performance. “I’d like to play my favorite
song from 1962 when I was nine years old”, he said as the band cast a deconstruction
of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, riddled with broken rhythms, inadvertent
shifts of meter, and discordant harmonies. The piece was generally
unrecognizable but very No Wave in both reach and spirit.
The music
continued as the felled saxophonist lay crumpled in a corner of the stage. Suddenly,
an old biker-type, all wooly grey beard and leather, pushed through the
thicket, shouting: “Get outta my way, I’ve gotta get him---ROBERT! ARE YA
ALRIGHT?!” The trio kept playing, sort of, as the harried club employee now attempted
to hold back Hell’s Aged. Gruff shouts of “Lemme through!” over-powered the band and
then after telling someone to hold his cane (really), the big ex-biker and a
pair of friends stumbled onstage and tried fruitlessly to lift Aaron as he fought
his way back to his feet---all this as Chance was playing a solo alto piece.
The performance came to an obvious conclusion as Aaron, in a state of apparent
blind drunkenness, ham-fisted the keyboard before Chance walked over and tore
the cable out of the instrument angrily. A woman, heard from within the
audience, shouted “That did it, we’re out of here” as the band looked away.
It can be
said that this Contortions appearance was simply James Chance delving further into
the absurdist realm than any of the earlier slap-fests could have achieved. If
so, then the prone Robert Aaron served as the embodiment of Duchamp’s “Fountain”
sculpture. No Wave, like Dada, was born of struggle, a creative opposition to nationalism,
bias and violence. Admirable, but in the destruction of art as we know it, the
populace is left with a painful emptiness that would leave us all staggering.
