Frank Zappa
Finer Moments

Frank Zappa - 2012 - Finer Moments

No, no commercial operation aimed at exploiting once again heard and reheard tracks, no remix of leftovers and scraps from the years preceding the departure of the great Frank Zappa.

This is the album that has been rumored about for a long time. That unreleased work that everyone was waiting for, inevitably finding themselves with something entirely different in hand.

The album consists of material, recorded partly live and partly in the studio, between 1967 and 1971. Everything was assembled and edited with Zappa's usual meticulous touch when, forced to stay in the studio due to a fan who stupidly climbed on stage and pushed him into the orchestra pit, he began to experiment with the tapes he had available. The style of assembly makes it a sort of pioneering attempt at the method, which remained dormant for many years and would later explode with “Sheik Yerbouti” and, subsequently, with the monumental collection “You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore.” For some still rather obscure reason, perhaps due to the not-so-remarkable quality determined by the four-track tape recorder, this work, prepared for release in 1973, remained in the drawer all this time and now, thanks to the commercial policy established by the family and the label associated with it, here it is.

The work unfolds over a double CD for about eighty minutes of Zappa's music in full overwhelming and irreverent style to which the author has always accustomed us and, one must admit, that about 20 years after his death, he continues to give us emotions and surprises like no other. An important detail and clear indication of the musical content of the work is the cover: in the background of the artist's drawing, who curated it, is a stylization of the 1970 album “Burnt Weeny Sandwich.” Indeed, style, music, and sound blends considerably refer back to that work and, more generally, to the Mother period straddling the two decades.

Let's get to the tracks which, as mentioned, are fused into one, separated only by spoken interludes from Zappa himself, almost entirely derived from live excerpts. Intended for release on double vinyl, both CDs close with a long side track: “Uncle Rhebus” for the first and “Subcutaneous Peril” for the second. The two long pieces, especially the second, a powerful and fluid jazz rock recorded entirely at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1971, allow us to savor, as always, the extraordinary power of Zappa's live shows, with gags, solos, rhythm and atmosphere changes, endowed with enormous stylistic imagination combined with technical skills clearly out of the ordinary. Regarding this, I recall Zappa's classified ad from that period which roughly read: “Wanted musicians of extraordinary technical skill and poor personal hygiene.”

Particularly notable in the tracklist of the first CD is the “Mozart Piano Sonata in B flat,” serious and precise in the first part but totally degenerated in the second part, with added voices, laughter, applause, and miscellaneous noises.

The second CD is decidedly dominated by the experimental part and Zappa must have had a lot of fun manipulating the live tapes used as a basis for all kinds of noise excursions. Essentially, everything that would have been side 3 on vinyl is covered by this crazy avant-garde experimental phase, especially the noise mini-suite “Squeeze It, Squeeze It, Squeeze It,” which reaches the paroxysmal peak of madness, with truly hallucinated three minutes. The closing with the mentioned “Subcutaneous Peril” truly lifts the heart and gives breath to the mind after the heavy demand for attention of the previous part.

Considering the various periods to which the recordings refer, the line-ups are quite heterogeneous, but clearly stand out are Don Preston's keyboard work, Ian Underwood's phenomenal sax, Aynsley Dunbar's complex and relaxed drumming, and Jim Pons's bass escapades.

It is indeed true that the sounds don't have the usual perfect Zappa perfection, but everything is very readable and it never descends to the level of a bootleg or mere passability. Final verdict: of the 80 minutes of work, there are 50 minutes of absolutely great and genius Zappa, 20 minutes of good experimentalism, and ten minutes perhaps a bit exaggerated and almost avoidable, but, all things considered, it was needed!

p.a.p. - Sioulette