James Chance aka James White is among the many never-appreciated geniuses of contemporary music. His brief period of musical output, from 1978 to 1983, is an example of the best that the also brief New York NO WAVE scene had to offer (many of White's no wave contemporaries like John Zorn and Glenn Branca have already received the respect they deserve). He had energy, vision, style and most important, class - a combination that few musicians have ever or can ever hope to attain. Imagine JAMES BROWN using IGGY POP as a megaphone with half of Brown's band along with ORNETTE COLEMAN circa his free jazz period backing him. That's only a starting point in trying to describe James Chance/White's sound. It's dense (even cluttered at times) and powerful. It's extreme enough to make all the punk rock-listening jocks run away with their tails between their legs. What more could you ask for?
Sax Maniac, his 1982 third studio album, has White trading some of his James Brown groove for some Miles Davis “On the Corner”-style cocaine-fueled funk.

The sound of the album is very cluttered, especially on "Disco Jaded" with Farfisa organ and acoustic piano playing completely different lines on opposite channels along with bass, percussion and White's vocals.
Though it may at first seem to be a deaf attempt at polyrhythm, it all comes together in time and the album seems to work specifically because it's so cluttered. The James Brown influence isn't absent from Sax Maniac, it just doesn't manifest itself into covers--though from the title, "Sax Machine" may seem to be at least a parody. The times on the album when the sound isn't cluttered, it's glued together and powerful enough to make Brown proud--and he would certainly be proud of the background vocals of White's Discolitas.
This music, made 20 years ago, sounds as new and brave and starlingly intense today as it did then. James was years ahead of his time. So maybe he can catch up with the fame that's his due. James Chance would seem to be needed now more than ever. James was always motivated by hate. Hate of stupidity, plasticity and the banal. hate of cliché and the insipid and the unoriginal. That's where his energy and fire came from. He turned negociation into celebration, arrogance into elegance, revenge into rhythm. And here, he created a fevered masterpiece of white funk.