The musician, founder of The Contortions and James White & The Blacks and godfather of punk-funk, has died at the age of 71 after a long illness.
If in the beginning it was the rhythm, James Chance, a furious apostle of dirty and fast funk who was born to play free jazz and ended up leading with his manic saxophone that angry deconstruction of punk that Brian Eno captured in the compilation ‘No New York’.
A legend despite himself, Chance, real name James Alan Siegfried, was never very convinced by all that no wave stuff (“I don’t feel like my music is like that of the rest of the bands,” he responded when they told DNA or MARS), but as a titan of the movement and godfather of punk-funk he was remembered this Wednesday after his brother David announced that Chance, leader of The Contortions and founder of Jim White & The Blacks, had died at the age of 71. . According to his family, his health had worsened in recent years and his last performance dates back to 2019, when he closed a brief tour of Europe in Utrecht.
Born in Wisconsin in 1953, Siegfried arrived in New York in 1977, changed his name and soon became a catalyst for the city’s avant-garde. It would still take a few years for John Zorn to launch Naked City, but there was already the young James soaking up punk nihilism and forming, together with a still-teenage Lydia Lunch, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, a seminal formation in that mix of primitivism. and experimental avant-garde that would be the New York no wave.
Convinced that jazz had lost much of its madness and invited by Lunch to leave Teenage Jesus & The Jerks for having too much contact with the public, Chance founded The Contortions and began to coin an electrifying legend of dangerous bullshit: the mixture of lyrics ashes, electric spasms and jagged saxophone solos translated night in and night out into explosions of fury on and off stage: it was a rare day that Chance, half angry preacher and half crazy crooner, didn’t end up slapping some spectator. Something like that, of course, couldn’t last, and after reluctantly allowing himself to be recorded by Eno and debuting in 1979 with ‘Buy’, Chance buried the Contortions and was reborn as James White & The Blacks to continue delivering shaggy jazz and fractured funk.
James Chance participated in FIVE DOLLAR PRIEST albums, released by Bang! Records.
From here we convey our condolences to the family and friends, especially to Ron Ward, who informed us of the sad news.
From here we convey our condolences to the family and friends, especially to Ron Ward, who informed us of the sad news.
