A key figure in No Wave Chance has been playing a combination of improvisational jazz-like music and punk in the New York music scene since the late 1970s, in such bands as Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, James Chance and the Contortions, James White and the Blacks, The Flaming Demonics, James Chance & the Sardonic Symphonics, and James Chance and Terminal City. Chance differed from some of his No Wave compatriots by possessing (and demanding from his band) a certain level of musical skill and talent.
