Frank Zappa - The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life

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Free Music Notes for The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life

Free Music Review: The Best, Absolutely Incredible Live Band
Hit: 5 Stars

As just one example of what I'm getting at, this disc was a change of style with respect to how Frank had been assembling his recorded music. First off, many of his albums had a foundation from tracks recorded live, with some tracks pulled off of the multitrack live master, then overdubs (sometimes MANY overdubs) were later added in the studio. At other times, solos were pulled off of one live tape and dubbed onto backing tracks from another performance - at times from a totally different song and maybe with the tape speed or even direction changed. Frank was a tireless pioneer of studio technology and recording and mastering technique and what you heard on a disc often never happened anywhere but in his imagination, which was then crafted in the studio into the product.

This album was a huge switch, back to earlier days in a way. These are live recordings with ZERO overdubs. If you want to know what his music sounded like live back in the 80's, just listen to these discs. His bands never quite met his expectations, but they were leaps and bounds, even light years ahead of any other band I've ever heard live - and I've heard quite a few that claimed to be the best. Now, like I said, there are no overdubs, but what was done in some circumstances was to take part of a song from one performance and edit into a different performance, to capture the best parts of each. It's easy to tell when this was done by reading the liner notes. For example, "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue" was assembled from performances in Syracuse, NY and Detroit, MI, but don't expect to hear the edits. I was at the Detroit show and that's my voice you hear in the background, saying: "You guys are the greatest!" And they were.

About the song list: again, excellent. 19 tracks were from one location, 8 were assembled as mentioned above from two different locations. Tunes from all periods of Frank's career, with numerous cover tunes thrown in for color, including Ring of Fire, I Left My Heart In San Francisco, Bolero, Purple Haze, Sunshine Of Your Love, When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Godfather Theme Part II, Theme From Bonanza and Stairway To Heaven. How's that for variety? Of the Zappa tunes, we are treated to new arrangements of numerous tracks, including Heavy Duty Judy. We have some excellent instrumentals, including Zoot Allures, Sofa #1 and an incredible performance of The Torture Never Stops. Lots of American folks didn't get to see this tour, but I did and it was incredible, just like this set!!!

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