Naked City (album)
album by Naked City
Naked City is an album by John Zorn, released on Elektra Nonesuch in February 1990. The band assembled by Zorn for the album would later become Naked City. The album is characterized by its covers of movie themes and its fusion of various musical genres.
Content
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, Joey Baron on drums, and Yamatsuka Eye on vocals. 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 Maruo Suehiro.
Release
The album was released by 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.
“Naked City (album)” enters the record as album by Naked City. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Naked, City and album can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1939121. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1988, 1940 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Naked City (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.