Wazoo!

[Allan Johnston]

While at the Zappa plays Zappa concert last week (which was great, by the way), I picked up the latest release from the vault of the Zappa Family Trust: "Wazoo" - a live instrumental performance from 1972 that features a 20 piece ensemble from the era that produced Zappa's much-beloved (and perhaps his jazzy-est) album "The Grand Wazoo". It's freaking amazing! If you want to hear how easy it is to train someone to sing a septuplet in the space of 3 quarter notes, check out the simple melody to "Big Swifty", which I've been singing along with since I was 15, but finally got around to counting. Kids - you owe it to yourself to check him out, if you haven't already...

Al

[Nou Dadoun]

That Zappa Plays Zappa gig was fabulous, the kind of show Frank never did because he (like Duke) always wanted to hear what he'd just written, 3 hours of fun:

Set list:

01. Crowd Noise / Intro
02. Dog Meat/Dog Breath Variations
03. Magic Fingers
04. Carolina Hardcore Ecstasy
05. Doreen
06. How Could I Be Such A Fool?
07. I Ain't Got No Heart
08. I'm Not Satisfied
09. Lonely Little Girl
10. City Of Tiny Lights
11. Zoot Allures
12. Ship Ahoy
13. Pygmy Twylyte
14. Audience Participation (Yellow Fever)
15. Dupree's Paradise
16. Uncle Remus
17. Willie The Pimp
18. Dumb All Over
19. What's New In Baltimore?
20. Joe's Garage
21. Wind Up Workin' In A Gas Station
22. San Ber'dino
23. The Illinois Enema Bandit
24. Yo Mama

Encore:

25. Cosmik Debris
26. G-Spot Tornado
27. Muffin Man


The band:

Dweezil Zappa: Guitar
Aaron Arntz: Keyboards, Trumpet
Scheila Gonzalez: Saxophone, Flute, Keyboards
Pete Griffin: Bass
Billy Hulting: Percussion
Jamie Kime: Guitar
Joe Travers: Drums
Ray White: Lead Vocals, Guitar


And the Grand Wazoo was always one of my favorite Zappa albums, is the dvd from the fabled "Petite Wazoo" European tour?

N.

[Allan Johnston]

And the Grand Wazoo was always one of my favorite Zappa albums, is the dvd from the fabled "Petite Wazoo" European tour?

N.


Nou -

The "Wazoo" of which I speak isn't a DVD (alas) but a two disc CD from a 1972 gig in Boston of the full "Grand Wazoo" Orchestra:

Jay Migliori--flute, saxophone, clarinet
Mike Altschul--piccolo, bass clarinet
Ray Reed--saxophone, clarinet
Charles Owen--saxophone, clarinet
Joann Caldwell McNab--bassoon
Earle Dumler--oboe
Jerry Kessler--cello
Malcolm McNab--trumpet
Sal Marquez--trumpet
Tom Malone--tuba
Bruce Fowler--trombone
Glenn Ferris--trombone
Ken Shroyer--trombone
Ian Underwood--synthesizer
Jim Gordon--drums
Dave Parlato--bass
Tony Duran--slide guitar
Tom Raney--percussion
Ruth Underwood--percussion
Frank Zappa--guitar

Last year, the ZFT released a CD from the smaller group that later became know as "Petit Wazoo". That CD is called "Imaginary Diseases", and is also great.

See http://members.shaw.ca/fz-pomd/index.html for (much) more information...

Al

[zula]

Curious about this. Will check it out.
I wonder what Ruth Underwood is up to. She was a real force with those mallets!

[Allan Johnston]

Curious about this. Will check it out.
I wonder what Ruth Underwood is up to. She was a real force with those mallets!

No kidding! Ruth retired from playing when she finished with Zappa in the mid 70's. I think "the road" got to her after a while, being the only woman in the band. However, she's prominently featured in the excellent VH1 "Classic Albums" segment on Zappa which came out recently on DVD and received play on *gasp* Much Music. She demonstrates a notoriously tricky excerpt from "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast" flawlessly to my ears, but claims she made 3 mistakes, one for each decade she'd been away from the music and the instrument. She also guests on Malcolm McNab's recent classical trumpet CD "Exquisite"
(http://cdbaby.com/cd/malcolmmcnab), which features music by Tchaikovsky, Bach and Zappa's "Bebop Tango", which was titled "The Malcolm McNab" when Zappa first put it on McNab's music stand in 1972.
One of the cool things about both "Wazoo" and "Imaginary Diseases" is hearing early versions of works familiar to any hard core Zappa fan. "Imaginary Diseases" contains "Rollo", parts of which later made in into "St. Alfonzo's...", and "Farther Oblivion", which contains the original "Bebop Tango" and the "Steno Pool" theme from "The Adventures of Greggery Peccary", which itself is heard in a fully instrumental version on "Wazoo".

Al