Frank Zappa
Roxy & Elsewhere

A beautiful double live album by Frank Zappa with the new "Mothers of Invention"; an album halfway between improvisation, singing, and speaking. Mostly taken from the concerts held at the Roxy in Los Angeles in December '73, it also includes tracks taken from various other concerts from the same period. The band we find here is perhaps the most loved by the general public and includes, among others, the Fowler brothers on trombone and trumpet, Ruth Underwood on percussion, plus a fabulous Chester Thompson on drums (the same as Genesis, Weather Report...). The usual unique, creative, and original style of old Frank serves as a common thread in this rich concert-album, which presents, in addition to many unreleased tracks, also long instrumental improvisations, solos and hilarious spoken skits like "Dummy up," in which Napoleon and Simmons stage a surreal dialogue that is difficult to summarize.

Jazz re-emerges in Zappa's compositions after the albums "Hot rats," "Waka\Jawaka," and "The Grand Wazoo," with a massive use of winds and long instrumental tracks, sometimes improvised on stage by various band members. Zappa leaves a lot of space for the individual musicians and performs more rarely than on other occasions in electric guitar solos (which are obviously all of the highest quality), directing, as always, in a masterful and effective way his vast band. The individual band members take advantage of the opportunity offered by the solos to shine in performances of the highest technical quality, and it should be noted that they are all artists of great technical skill and explosive inventiveness. George Duke on keyboards surprises us by pulling out a be bop version of a Tango theme, during which some people in the audience are invited to come up on stage to participate directly in the concert. On vocals, we find Napoleon Murphy Brock, the mighty saxophonist discovered by Zappa in a bar in Hawaii, a fantastic entertainer and skillful singer. Zappa, however, as we all know he didn't love singing too much but preferred when someone else did it for him, limits himself to speaking (also asking the audience questions, which they answer to), actually singing only in the tracks "Penguin in Bondage" and "More Trouble Everyday." He also comments and introduces much of the pieces the group is about to perform, in his typical ironic and sharp style; unforgettable is the introduction to the piece "Cheepnis," in which he mocks monster movies.

A beautiful and complete album that I consider suitable even for those approaching the crazy and bizarre world of Zappa for the first time; undoubtedly unmissable for enthusiasts. A video of this concert was also shot, which unfortunately remains unpublished; the Zappa family has announced its upcoming release several times, but nothing has been seen yet...