Reunion in Lowell

 Just when you think all the laughs on Facebook have been exhausted ... right there, below “Pages similar to William Shakespeare,” is The Da Vinci Code

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

My mother had once said to me, “Not everybody is going to think you are as cute and love you like I do.” She sure was right.

— Lewis Grizzard, If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground

Just had a good catch-up phone call with my friend and colleague, Kevin Scott. Triad sang a motet of Kevin’s at our last concert. Orlando Cela will conduct the Lowell Chamber Orchestra in a piece they commissioned of Kevin on their concert this Saturday. I’m delighted that Kevin will make it to the concert.

Yea, of Even the Arizona Things

 

Babalú bamboo
Ribald rebels
Iraqi earache
Rogue dirigible!

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

A painting is not a picture of an experience, it is an experience.

— Mark Rothko

As reported here, Lord of the Things will, erm, ring out in Tempe, Arizona on Saturday, February 22, at 7:00 PM at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church. ’Tis pity I shan’t be able to attend in person. Nevertheless, I am thrilled at what appears to be the première of henningmusick in The Apache State.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part V-B

 

The Roofs of Rhythm
To runce the irruncible spoon ....
Kennst du Schenectady?
An unused Agnus Dei.
Odorless green ideas smell furiously.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I know, I know: you’re a woman who’s been getting nothing but dirty breaks. Well, we can clean and tighten your brakes, but you’ll have to stay in the garage all night.

— Groucho Marx in Monkey Business

Since (as noted erewhile) Uncle Meat was an early Zappa acquisition of mine, I especially enjoy the fact that the show documented on Disc Four of the Over-Nite Sensation 50th anniversary box (in Detroit’s Cobo Hall on 12 May 1973) opens with a kind of Uncle Meat Suite, starting with a loose chamber-musicly “Exercise #4.” Then, missing Ricky Lancelotti, a purely instrumental “Fifty-Fifty” whose overall tenor feels like an echo of the Grand Wazoo. Then Sal Marquez sings a sultry “Inca Roads.” Oh, very nice trumpet solo, too. Then a preview of Apostrophe (’), the “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” medley, closing with a sped-up reprise of “St Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast.” Then “Cosmik Debris,” and a concluding medley of “King Kong”/“Chunga’s Revenge” and “Son of Mr Green Genes.” Overall, I’d say that one of the things I’m especially glad of in this box, is all the Jean-Luc Ponty.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part V-A

 

Knowing that there are gardeners who tend the monarchical residences, I am less harsh on myself for misreading the phrase as “Royal Weeding.”
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Just me and the pygmy pony, over by the dental floss bush.
— Frank Zappa, “Montana”

The Over-Nite Sensation 50th anniversary box came in. I began with listening to the blu-ray audio (It’s an interesting industry artifact that Zappa prepared the album in a quadraphonic mix—and fittingly enough the subject of the song “Camarillo Brillo” says her stereo is four-way) Purely as regards my personal feelings let me get the “bad news” (merely my least flattering remarks, really) out of the way first: overall (and arguably against consensus), the album is not one of my favorite Zappa releases. When the topic/thought of the album arises, my first thought is apt to be, Oh, not “Dinah-Moe Humm” again. In my view there is space for finding the more raunchily ribald of his songs tiresome, without lapsing into Prudery. I don’t discount any of his songs merely because it’s salacious, and that said, “Humm” is only one song out of seven, and but 17% of the album’s run time. And sure enow, in listening to the album afresh I am reminded that the Sensation is rather better than I have been apt to credit it. And after all (literally) it closes superbly with “Montana.” My favorite extras from Disc One? I find myself asking, Where has “Wonderful Wino” been all my life? And the short answer is that (somehow) I’ve never listened to the Zoot Allures album. I’ve heard the exquisite title track in a number of live versions (also the studio version, I think, on the Frank Zappa Plays the Music of Frank Zappa disc. Love the 1973 versions of “Inca Roads” and “RDNZL,” the latter with especially tasty work by Jean-Luc Ponty. The single versions of “I’m the Slime” and “Montana” are fun, as is the “Bolic take-home mix” of “Inca Roads.” Of course, Take 2 of “RDNZL (also with cracking work by Ponty),” obviously. And another apparent prototype: “X-FORTS (Echidna’s Arf (of You)).” The entire disc, in other words, is solid.

As to the Disc Two odds and ends, the track I personally found of greatest interest was the pipe organ improv (Ian Underwood, Geo. Duke? Unclear, but I guess I lean towards the latter) by way of introducing “Fifty/Fifty.”

The final three tracks of Disc Two and all of Disc Three are what remains in the Vault of a 23 March 1973 show at the Hollywood Palladium. Duke plays a smoking electric piano for the eight-minute introduction to “Dupree’s Paradise” Perhaps unsurprisingly (for many reasons) the whole show is a rewarding listen. Bottom line: Although I had some slight misgivings that this box might prove a disappointment after the Apostrophe (’) 50th anniversary box, when I got me down to some listening, I found no such matter.

A Curious Bit of Good News

 

The date rarely figures in my dreams, so when it does, of course it goes funny. Dreamt that today is January 48th. You can imagine my puzzlement. Almost everyone I asked agreed that January should have 31 days, except one who suggested, "Maybe it was decided to have 50 days in January this year.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

It’s depressing that “Secret Agent” has become synonymous with “Sex Maniac.”

— David Niven as Bond, James Bond in Casino Royale (1967)

Gentle Reader, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve reported here on

this blog that my piece was not selected for whichever call I had submitted

it to. The fact that Lord of the Things actually succeeded in being chosen was therefore an instant rarity, and perhaps a kind

of landmark. Yesterday I received a message which, while it reported the

apparent disappointment that my piece could not be included in the program

driving the Call, was a highly encouraging

and unforcedly kind word from a conductor associated with the call:

I am reaching out

to you personally to express my admiration for your submission. Due

to practical limitations,

the organization was not able to program your piece for the upcoming

season. However, with your permission, I would like to add it

to my personal

repertoire and perform it at some point in the future, through the DNMC or otherwise. Please stay in touch. I’ll

let you know when I am able

to play your piece. In the meantime, I will stay alert for any

of your new works. [emphasis in the original]

The piece in question? Thoreau in Concord Jail. Highly gratifying, indeed.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part IV

 

“But I won’t try driving over the George Washington Bridge the day before Thanksgiving. I would do anything for love. But I won’t do that. What, are you meshuggah?”
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Gross and perverted am I, but look away you cannot.

— Yoda, performing “I’m the Slime”

A week ago, I was still dithering over whether to pull the trigger on

The Hot Rats Sessions. Could I find it cheaper anywhere? My first

thought was to try zappa.com. Natural enough, right? No dice.

Didn't find it there then, don’t find it there today. The only

apparently relevant search result was a three-CD issue, Funky

Nothingness. The blurb on zappa.com begins: ‘Funky Nothingness

is the “lost album” sequel to the iconic Hot Rats (1969)’

In the booklet, “Vaultmeister” Joe Travers writes: “With archival

releases from the vault it is normal to find different arrangements

of past tunes featured in live concerts and studio settings with other

bands, but actual NEW compositions are few and far between,

especially from within Zappa's golden years of the '60s and '70s.

Funky Nothingness delivers on all fronts showcasing Zappa's love for

rhythm and blues, picking up where Hot Rats left off with extended

instrumental workouts fusing rock, jazz, and classical elements into

music that can only be described as ZAPPA. The guitar work and

virtuoso musicianship are in full effect.” Expectations are therefore

high, and—to get briefly Meta—the Expectation is that those high

expectations will indeed be met. So, here we are.

Disc One is headed: Funky Nothingness, the album.

Disc Two: Zappa/Hot Rats '70—Session Masters and Bonus

Nothingness.

Disc Three: Zappa/Hot Rats '70—More Session Masters and Bonus

Nothingness.

Quick thoughts on Disc One:

I’ve listened to the first disc, which is the speculatively ‘reconstructed’

album itself. Enjoyable, plenty of good stuff. I’m suppressing a weak

tendency towards prejudice against the project. After all, in the first

place, recordings/performances which are worth hearing have been

made available to us. And in the second, the methodology is on the same

lines of Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. I’m still

mulling. Welp, and when we got to track 12, the sound cut out several

times. Defective disc? I’ve ripped it, and am now listening to the track via

Media Monkey to check. The problem may be my machine? It’s very old,

to be sure. And now, it won’t even receive the disc to play at all. Other discs

still play fine. And the erstwhile uncooperative track plays on Media Monkey

fine. Do I really care if that one disc and my machine don’t get along?...

Now, there’s a certain You play the game with the team you’ve got aspect

to this, but I’ll go ahead and register as a disappointment the fact that

designating the “lost album.” and therefore this 3-CD release, “Funky

Nothingness” (a title which seems to promise so much) after a track which

runs less than two minutes. I’ll stipulate that it’s a highly interesting

108 seconds, but “Don’t Blink or You’ll Miss It” isn’t the spiffiest idea for a

title track. Much more substantial (and of correspondingly greater interest)

and equally new to us lay listeners is the 13-minute “Twinkle Tits.” Now, of

course, no one need enlighten me as to how poor advice it had been to title

the album thus—Heck, I almost physically wince to type those two words.

That technical disappointment noted, overall musically I find the album

a gratifying listen. 

First thoughts on Disc Two: all good. It’s possible that if you had asked me

before listening, which tracks I expected I should find the most interesting,

I might have trended towards the longer tracks, but this was, simply, my

experience. “Chunga’s Revenge” (Take 5) at 16 minutes and a quarter, the

18-minute-plus unedited master of “Transylvania Boogie” (fascinating for

all the musical material different to the 5-minute track which opens the

album Chunga’s Revenge as released, a 15-minute unedited master of

“Sharleena,” and—consistent with remarks above—“Twinkle Tits.”

First thoughts on Disc Three: all good, too. Take 8 of “Chunga’s Revenge”

features an especially tasty organ solo (either Don “Sugarcane” Harris or Ian

Underwood, I could only guess which) and if you need a reason for

another sinuous Zappa solo, you may be in the wrong place (I mean, you’re

welcome, all the same.) Compared to the 1:23 track as it appeared

on the album Chunga’s Revenge, we enjoy nearly 16 minutes of freewheeling

percussion in unedited masters of “The Clap.” “Halos and Arrows” is

a three-minute “guitar experiment” with Zappa playing all the instruments,

which, Travers writes, “was not meant to be saved.” “Moldred,” a wah-wah-

marinated composite of otherly bits. Most substantially, we have a 22-minute

unedited master of “Tommy/Vincent Duo” (whoever they might have been.)

The actual duelists are Zappa and Aynsley Dunbar, a drummer with whom

Zappa began working in 1970. From this mammoth master, about seven

minutes were excerpted for two tracks on the putative Funky Nothingness

album. And, also in the “otherly bits” column, Disc Three closes with

“Fast Funky Nothingness,” a 45-second bluesy shufflette which was “found

on a two-track reel full of snippets and oddities.” And truly, of course there

are no snippets and oddities in the musical world like unto Zappa snippets

and oddities.

Is this Phase One of Chunga’s Revenge?

Now, let me return to Disc One. Mitigating against the disappointment noted

above, following the 108 seconds of “Funky Nothingness” with 44 seconds’

worth of “Tommy/Vincent Duo I” is a creative solution, and as with so many

of FZ’s own musico-chemical alloys (that’s got to be a mixed metaphor, but let it

ride) the result is perfectly smooth. This album plays very nicely in toto,

indeed. Can’t play it in the CD player, but I’m not sure I care, ultimately.

There are bigger problems in the world.

Bashful notes

 

What if the first phrase your parakeet learns is “Alexa, pause”...?
With apologies to Ben Britten, I just misread that as “Our Hurting Fathers.”
A place called (or subtitled) The Sushi & Tequila Experience does set me to wondering, if it’s the sort of experience people wish to repeat.
Leave it to Facebook to highlight “catalogue” as if it were a misspelling.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I had let her talk on, for her voice was like a solution of all musical sounds. I now told her that I could hardly say whether women were happy or not. I knew one who had not been happy; and for my part, I had often longed for Fairy Land, as she now longed for the world of men. But then neither of us had lived long, and perhaps people grew happier as they grew older. Only I doubted it.

— Geo. MacDonald

After a beginning (to the process) perhaps best described as tentative, I let O singer, bashful and tender, I hear your tender notes have a good long rest, because, I suppose, I didn’t hear enough of the tender notes as yet. The news, such as it is, is that there has been no dramatic change. I’m inching closer to hearing more of the notes, really is all, at present. I foresee more notes in a non-distant future.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part III—Hot Rats Sessions B

When MGM Records neglected to exercise a contract option in 1968, FZ founded Bizarre Productions with manager Herb Cohen. This company mutated into Bizarre Records (with distribution taken care of by Warner Brothers' Reprise label) by October 1968. "Sister" label Straight Records was formed by FZ in the spring of 1969 to release material by slightly off-center artists, but these artists were not nearly as extreme as those on Bizarre (hence, the name "Straight" versus "Bizarre"). After Straight finished its independent run with Reprise and Warner Brothers-distributed stints, the DiscReet label was created in 1973.

— Zappa Wiki/Jawaka

Tryin’ to buy a grunt with a third-party check.
— Captain Beefheart, “Willie the Pimp”

There’s an unlikely, if  distant, connection to Ol’ Blue Eyes: the Reprise record label was founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. Warner Bros.

purchased the label in August of 1963. And now: back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It shouldn’t really surprise me that the music made during these

sessions which did not appear as tracks on Hot Rats would surface

on, e.g. Weasels Ripped My Flesh (“Directly From My Heart to You”)

Studio Tan (“Let Me Take You to the Beach.” here under the working title

of “Dame Margret’s Son to Be a Bride”) and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (“Another

Waltz,” here, 28 minutes of music-making would reduce and morph into

“Little House I Used to Live In.”) So, I waive any and all surprise pertaining

thereto. “Directly From My Heart to You” as released later on Weasels runs five

minutes and a quarter; the unedited master here runs five minutes longer, and I can

report that they are five toothsome minutes. Disc 4 sees “Son of Mr Green Genes

being workshopped, and more work towards “It Must Be a Camel.” The bulk

of the disc, though, is an almost 33-minute master take of “Big Legs,” which when

edited, will greet the world as “The Gumbo Variations.” I live for discoveries like these,

I freely admit. There’s more work on the jazz waltz here dubbed “Arabesque,” which

will see light on Weasels as “Toads of the Short Forest,” which was Zappa’s nickname

for “the crabs.” The disc closes with almost six minutes of Ian Underwood playing

keyboard overdubs which will appear on Burnt Weeny Sandwich. Remembering how

strong the final albums are, makes it a joy to hear these musical notions in embryo.

Since I had begun with Disc 5 whose mainstay was the 1987 digital re-mix of the album.

That leaves Disc 6, which takes us back further, opening with a two-minute acetate of the saxophone tune of “Little Umbrellas,” recorded at Studio Z in Cucamonga, “circa

1961-64.” Then 1969 mix outtakes of “Minuscule Umbrellas,” as Zappa says on tape,

“It Must Be a Camel,” and “Son of Mr Green Genes.” There are more sundries, perhaps

most notably a 1970 Record Plant mix of “Bognor Regis” (you may be pardoned if you

might not recall from earlier, substantially a showcase for Don “Sugarcane” Harris’

violin; cool, where “The Gumbo Variations” run hot.)

In sum, while nothing would have prevented me from observing so before, had I been

facing the right direction, the experience of passively “participating” in the making

of the album by listening to all the myriad pieces of the puzzle has put for me into sharp

focus the tripartite symmetry of Hot Rats: one-third of the album (that is, two of the six

tracks) is rhythmically straight—“Peaches en Regalia,” the number Zappa would jestingly count in for his bandmates when they visited him while he recovered in hospital after he

was attacked and pushed off the stage of London’s Rainbow Theatre, and “Son of Mr

Green Genes,” an instrumental timbral reimagining of a song from Uncle Meat, faithfully following the song’s form. Another third is the two compact jazz chamber music vignettes—“Little Umbrellas” and “It Must Be a Camel,” brightly polished jazz gems whose finished perfection gives no token of their volcanic birthing. And the remaining third is the

exultantly extrovert vulcanism of “Willie the Pimp” and “The Gumbo Variations”—vehicles

for the trading off of athletically virtuosic solos, not forgetting Captain Beefheart’s by turns gravelly and hootey vocalizations.

Insofar as recording my musings here has a purpose, I doubt that the purpose is to get the Reader to purchase this set. Presumably, if you are inclined to find such a cornucopia

of source documents for a seminal album by an iconic countercultural American musical master an engaging listen, you may likely already own the Sessions. For the other Readers, though (held in no less warm regard by the Author) I expect the principal end will be a renewed interest in hearing the album itself, an album, as one witty promotional spot

puts it “almost too psychedelic, almost too spiffy to listen to,” and to which I myself will

listen afresh directly.

The Unexpexted Zappa Orgy of 1Q25 Part III—Hot Rats Sessions A

These are the days of spherical and under, this is the long-defunct mall.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

That’s where I got the idea for … the title of the Hot Rats album: There’s a recording that I picked up in Europe that had “The Shadow of Your Smile” with Archie Schepp playing on it, and he played this solo that just sounded to me immediately like there was this fucking army of pre-heated rats screaming out of his saxophone. That’s what it sounded like.

— Frank Zappa

A complete line of extras designed with your mind in mind.

— Philip Proctor as Ralph Spoilsport, a parody of Encino automobile salesman Ralph Williams

Plunging into the Hot Rats Sessions, I started with Disc 5, which includes the 1987 digital remix of the album, and closes with a sweet shuffle on which “Sugarcane” Harris shines. I then proceeded to Disc 1. It's not for everybody (obviously) but I am really enjoying hearing all the bits, the jams, the what-have-you’s. The details listed in the book are interesting and informative. If like me, you’re a fan of Burnt Weenie Sandwich, the first two tracks of Ian Underwood playing piano shine with glimpses of familiarity and are entirely engaging. The bulk of the disc’s running time is workshopping “Peaches en Regalia,” and while (sure) I get that not everybody will find it engaging, as a composer, I entirely enjoy this opportunity to be a fly on the wall as Zappa by turns takes part in the jams and guides the rehearsal process. This is not “aimless noodling” but highly directed noodling by superb musicians with a great sense of ensemble. Disc 2 workshops “It Must Be a Camel” and “Little Umbrellas” (whose working title was “Natasha.”) There’s a tasty eleven-minute violin blues, “Bognor Regis” with a nice wrangly guitar solo. Then, workshopping “Willie the Pimp,” as well as an unedited master thereof running quarter of an hour. From a cassette recording from preparing The Real Frank Zappa Book by Peter Occhiogrosso (I don’t recall this actually appearing in the book:

That’s where I got the idea for … the title of the Hot Rats album: There’s a recording that I picked up in Europe that had “The Shadow of Your Smile” with Archie Schepp playing on it, and he played this solo that just sounded to me immediately like there was this fucking army of pre-heated rats screaming out of his saxophone. That’s what it sounded like. To backtrack, the arrival of the parcel confused me quite. The Apostrophe (’) 50th anniversary edition is a delightfully compact affair, and I had allowed this to set my expectations for this comparable Hot Rats celebratory issue. So, this enormous carton arrived, and when I opened it up, I found an LP-sized box within. I mistakenly supposed that I was sent vinyl in error, but no, when I spoke to an agent to sort out (as I thought) the “problem,” I broke the cellophane, examined the contents, and discovered that yes, this is the compact disc edition. My initial trend to dismay at the unanticipatedly much larger footprint of the product has been completely reversed to pleasure that the book reproduces the LP artwork, hitting all the nostalgia buttons.