Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - Grand Wazoo
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Free Music Notes for Grand Wazoo
Free Music Review: zappa did jazz too! this is great
Hit: 5 Stars
This was recorded when frank was all hurt and wheelchair clad. It sounds really terrific. We have many fine musicians on this thing.eg sal marquez and george duke. marquez is a beautiful trumpeter (listen to blessed relief). george has a beautiful solo on eat that question and another fine solo on blessed relief. these two songs are my faves. frank has a solo on eat the question, wah-wah solo. Man, it rocks. The title track has a great big band sound, a lovely composition. Lots of soloing here, which is what jazz should be. trombone,trumpet, don preston on mini moog. Tony duran guitar-brill! The song cleetus awreetus awrightus is very funny, a cracker. funny sounding i mean. I don't have a cover on my cd, i got it cheap. But the artwork looks great. Also great is calvin and two hitchhikers, off the wall stuff, and the big band sound is taken full advantage of near the end. It's a great tune. Aynsley Dunbar is a wonderful drummer, his drumming on the album is excellent. Pity there isn't more of this kind of stuff floating around. There was a tour with this band in 72, i'm sure it was a cracker. Anyway, get this album if you like good jazzy music. Also i recommend waka/jawaka also from 1972. Thank youFree Music Review: Did you ever hear real Zappa?
Hit: 5 Stars
Just when the jester becomes poet you can realize was he good jester.Zappa always looked like cinyc and nihilist. Not each musician is nihilist but in the end a half of all lorry drivers are cinycs and it's not necessery to pay for cynic speech. Fortunately, Zappa always was more than he was looked like.
To the matter of point. On Grand Wazoo Zappa stops to send regards to audience and concentrates on his notes and instruments. The result is next miniset of long jazz pieces after Hot Rats. But while Hot Rats with massive sound attacks was waterspout Grand Wazoo is refined melodic playing.
Just "For Calvin" has uneven theme losing balance. Others are essential. Title track offers melody a new path each time old one is passed. In the middle of 13-minutes way sounds scatters but the same time riffs opening piece come back. "Cletus Awreetus" is a masterpiece built of unique chord sequence that is pathetic and fun at the same time. "Eat That Question" is fresh jazz piece for guitar and "Blessed Relief" is a melody of almost impassive beauty.
Free Music Review: Superb jazz-fusion
Hit: 5 Stars
Out of all of FZ's instrumental (or mostly instrumental) albums,"The Grand Wazoo" comes second only to "Hot Rats" in quality.
Its brand of jazz-fusion with classical and funk touches is similar to that of "Hot Rats", although it is a bit lighter in
tone and contains more horns and woodwinds. The production sounds just as bright and full, however, and the tunes are equally memorable. The funky "Eat That Question" is fueled by George Duke's stellar electric piano and organ work, which coalesce with Zappa's wah-wah guitar for some very tasty, quasi- psychedelic sounds. The closing "Blessed Relief" is one of the most sensitive and poignant pieces in FZ's entire career, a soft, lilting light jazz number with a reverbed electric piano and soothing acoustic guitar work fit for late-night reminiscing. This album represents a peak for this particular
style of Zappa's varied body of work, one which he would return to only in small doses for the rest of his career. Highly
recommended.
Free Music Review: Classic
Hit: 5 Stars
Most people rest after an accident or being a crime victim. Frank Zappa recorded a big band album
Zappa got thrown off stage by a crazed fan in 1971 and this left him in a wheelchair for almost a year. If you notice his deeper voice, it is from his larynx being crushed during the assult. Unable to tour he assembled this band.
The five peices here bring Zappa's maximus sound to fruition with a fantastic big band, a big band taylored for Frank's music. This is no mere professional jazz date. The sliding trombones and needling muted trumpets bring the irony you expect from Zappa, and on the guitar solos, Zappa is as usual brillant.
There is blues as well as bigger conceptul pieces. All work as jazz, big band music, and Zappa music, and all of it exsists on all three levels.
But for me the highlight is "Blessed Relief," a sunningly placid piece; one of the few of Zappa's I can name with no irony. The only regrettable thing about this song is that it, mysteriously, did not become a live staple
Free Music Review: Good start for instrumental Zappa
Hit: 5 Stars
Zappa was a very prolific and complicated artist. It can be overwhelming deciding where to start with him and if it's a less 'desirable' place, you may never come back. But if it's from the 'right' place, you may come to realize that you have the discovered what it has taken me all these years to call, THE AMERICAN ROCK COMPOSER. He has traversed so many genres and styles over so many recordings that you can only classify him as ZAPPA. But so much of it is sort of rock too(with the whole Varese, Stravinsky, absurdist, influence.) Anyhow, The Grand Wazoo is one of Zappa's earliest instrumental releases after Hot Rats and Waka Jawaka. The guitar playing is excellent within his own type of early 70's fusion. His guitar tone is unique to this recording and somewhat understated as opposed to dominating. He doesn't use distortion at all which is unusual for him. It sounds like a band which is nice. Good compositions, very little singing, just one song. Great choice to begin your descent.......