Music / neo-funk
Review: James Chance & The Contortions/Iceman Furniss Quartet/Norman, The Lanes
While naming a free music night Improv’s Greatest Hits is obviously meant ironically there are times when it hangs true, and the return of No Wave legend James Chance was one of them. His original band flourished on the late 70s New York scene with a reputation for combining free jazz, punk and funk in a confrontational assault on audience complacency. By the late 80s he had slipped from view, sporadically appearing thereafter in various combos, the latest of which had arrived at The Lanes but, as the gig commenced, there was still no sign of The Man Himself.
Norman
The choice of young band Norman (formerly known as Tropic) to open was a tad out of kilter with an improv night but rather suited the occasion. Their sound had strong echoes of CBGB bands like Television, the B52s or early Talking Heads, with strong resonant basslines, wordy lyrics and eccentric hooks. Joined by Harry Furniss on cornet they delivered some entertainingly disharmonic thrashing that quickly resolved into tidy endings.
Iceman Furniss Quartet
Harry returned for a set with his own Iceman Furniss Quartet, a seasoned improvisational foursome who built up from a prowling growling opening to a dreamy Miles Davis ambience that scattered with stumbling bass lines and broken drumbeats before resolving into something pulsing and grooving, a motorik beat in 5-time that soothed and irked at the same time.
is needed now More than ever
Again, the echoes of punk and post-punk sonics felt appropriate in setting the scene for the headliner who had actually arrived and made his way stiffly onto the stage, saxophone in hand, his distinctive flat top hair style and lounge lizard jacket marking him out in a generally drably dressed event. The opening number – Gil Scott-Heron’s Home Is Where the Hatred Is – was alarmingly sedate, with a tidy backing and moderated strained vocals. Happily, however, that was just a warm up and as he moved over to the Hammond things began to sizzle into more hoped-for shape. His brand of funk keeps the essential loop and groove construction of the music but opens it to harmonic explorations and idiosyncratic rhythms. James Chance’s declamatory vocal delivery, punk style, also adapts James Brown’s original whoops and hollers but from a different tradition and root.
Things were going well until he announced that he felt a ballad coming on and proceeded to cover Days of Wine and Roses in a more or less straight lounge cabaret style that didn’t quite gel as either tribute or parody. Fortunately he salvaged the mood with That’s Life, another Sinatra standard but given a disrespectfully punk re-reading. Even more successful was the anti-gospel meltdown of his own The Street With No Name.
Whenever he took it up James Chance’s saxophone playing proved as fluent and accomplished as ever – unlike most of the No Wave generation he actually went to music school and studied with top jazz musicians – and his keyboard playing had some of the wonky freshness of Ethiofunk. He never introduced the band but the guitarist was particularly impressive, somehow riding the vagaries of Chance’s vocal and instrumental interjections while providing smart and imaginative variations on an essentially limited theme. That he achieved this while enveloped in smoke from a misfunctioning smoke machine was all the more laudable.
The happiest sounds came at the end when all four piled hell for leather into a funk thrash dominated by wailing freeform sax. It was as urgent and exciting as ever, and while he may have paced himself to get there it showed that James Chance still has that thing, whatever it is.
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