Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.
As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music.[6] He began writing classical music in high school, while at the same time playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined songs in conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz, or classical.
Zappa’s output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed “Project/Object”, with numerous musical phrases, ideas, and characters reappearing across his albums.[2] His lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes, structures and movements, often humorously so, and he has been described as the “godfather” of comedy rock. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he disapproved of recreational drug use, but supported decriminalization and regulation.
Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist with a controversial critical standing; supporters of his music admired its compositional complexity, while detractors found it lacking emotional depth. He had greater commercial success outside the US, particularly in Europe. Though he worked as an independent artist, Zappa mostly relied on distribution agreements he had negotiated with the major record labels. He remains a major influence on musicians and composers. His many honors include his posthumous 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Zappa died from prostate cancer on December 4, 1993, 17 days shy of his 53rd birthday, at his home with his wife and children by his side. At a private ceremony the following day, his body was buried in a grave at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery, in Los Angeles. The grave has since been unmarked. On December 6, his family publicly announced that “Composer Frank Zappa left for his final tour just before 6:00 pm on Saturday”(wikipedia)
You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 is a live album by Frank Zappa. Despite the subtitle ‘The Helsinki Concert’, the album is not one complete concert, but was, in fact, assembled from two (and possibly three) different concerts performed in Helsinki in 1974. The working title for this album was The Helsinki Tapes, a title more accurately reflecting the fact that the album was composed of performances from more than one show. It is the only album of the series You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore that includes only one Frank Zappa Band, and only one location of concert. All other albums mix different bands and different time periods in the stage career of Frank Zappa.
The track listing is similar to that of Roxy & Elsewhere (1974), as are the core band personnel. The performance includes a double-speed version of “Village of the Sun”, sandwiched between a later version of “RDNZL”, the first being recorded in 1972, and “Echidna’s Arf (Of You)”, and “Montana (Whipping Floss)”, in which Zappa alters the lyrics of “Montana” in response to a request from an audience member for the Allman Brothers song “Whipping Post”. (Zappa would later add “Whipping Post” to his band’s repertoire in response to this request.)[2] The guitar solo in the One Size Fits All (1975) version of “Inca Roads” is an edited extract of the solo presented here. (wikipedia)
In his contract with Ryko, Frank Zappa had to put together 12 CDs worth of live material for the series You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore. The fact that he decided to devote two of them (all of Vol. 2) to a Helsinki concert from 1974 illustrates how good and representative he thought it was — and he was right. This two-CD set features the 1973-1974 band (Napoleon Murphy Brock, George Duke, Ruth Underwood, Tom Fowler, Chester Thompson) near the end of their tour, in a concert in faraway Finland on September 22, 1974 (there were actually two concerts performed that day and, as usual, Zappa edited the best moments together). The set list comes mostly from the Roxy & Elsewhere repertoire, except that here the songs are taken at a faster tempo and free of the overdubs found on the original album. “Echidna’s Arf (Of You)” and “Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing?” are very exciting, but without the vocal overdubs “Cheepnis” feels empty.
But the treats lie elsewhere, as in the playful “Inca Roads” (Zappa used the guitar solo from this concert for the One Size Fits All version); “RDNZL,” still a work-in-progress at the time; the unreleased “Approximate” (including hilarious stage craziness); and “T’Mershi Duween.” The band is in great shape, Zappa being particularly witty and good-humored. When a member of the audience requests the Allman Brothers song “Whipping Post,” he spontaneously rewrites the lyrics to “Montana” — and backup vocalists Brock and Duke have to adapt! For fans of the man’s complex, progressive rock-tinged music of the mid-’70s, this is a must-have, even though it also contains very average moments (“Dupree’s Paradise,” for instance). Sound quality is very good, superior to any bootleg from this period. (by François Couture)
Personnel:
Napoleon Murphy Brock (saxophone, flute, vocals)
George Duke (keyboards, vocals)
Tom Fowler (bass)
Chester Thompson (drums)
Ruth Underwood (percussion)
Frank Zappa (guitar, vocals)
Tracklist:
CD 1:
01. Tush Tush Tush (A Token of My Extreme) 2.48
02. Stinkfoot 4.21
03. Inca Roads 10.54
04. RDNZL 8.43
05. Village Of The Sun 4.34
06. Echidna’s Arf (Of You) 3.31
07. Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing? 4.56
08. Pygmy Twylyte 8.22
09. Room Service 6.23
10. The Idiot Bastard Son 2.40
11. Cheepnis 4.30
CD 2:
01. Approximate 8.12
02. Dupree’s Paradise 23.56
03. Satumaa (Finnish Tango) 3.50
04. T’Mershi Duween 1.32
05. The Dog Breath Variations 1.38
06. Uncle Meat 2.28
07. Building A Girl 1.00
08. Montana (Whipping Floss) 10.14
09. Big Swifty 2.17
All songs written by Frank Zappa
except 03./CD 2) written by Unto Mononen
More from Frank Zappa in this blog:
The official website:
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