James Chance, the punk-funk singer-saxophonist who helped kickstart the “No Wave” movement, has died at age 71.
Chance’s brother, David Siegfried, confirmed the musician’s death in a Tuesday Facebook post. Although the cause of death is unknown, Siegfried wrote that “the musician’s health had been in decline for several years” and that Chance had died at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center in New York Tuesday.
Chance, born James Alan Siegfried, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended a Catholic elementary school where he learned to play piano. By age 18, he picked up the saxophone. He later attended Michigan State University and the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee but never earned degrees. While in school, Chance formed the jazz band James Siegfried Quintet and the Stooges-influenced Death. By 1975, he picked up his life and headed to New York under the new guise James Chance. While in New York, Chance formed the influential band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks with singer and lyricist Lydia Lunch in 1976, and The Contortions the following year, after studying with jazz saxophonist David Murray.
In 1979, The Contortions released their debut album Buy, a 9-track album which UK-based magazine Far Out described as a “jazz funk manifesto for the punk generation.” During The Contortions’ live shows, Chance would often instigate physical confrontations with audience members, encouraging fans to have fist fights with one another.
Over the course of three decades, Chance recorded often spiky, comical tracks such as “Disposable You” and “(I’m Not A) Bedroom Athlete” as well as rock and R&B tracks like James Brown’s “King Heroin,” on the album Lost Chance. Chance’s punk-funk style influenced the likes of Sonic Youth, Alan Licht, Flying Luttenbachers, Liars, Deerhoof, U.S. Maple, Xiu Xiu, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Friction around pay and credit led to the breakup of the Contortions in 1979. The band reunited in 2003 for a number of performances such as LA’s All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival. In 2018, Chance performed a wailing, climactic solo during a Franz Ferdinand performance of “Feel the Love Go” on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His final live performance was believed to have taken place in the Netherlands in 2019.
From Rolling Stone US
