My Content
Membership has its privileges! Sign up or sign in to gain full access to both All About Jazz and Jazz Near You. Learn more.
Articles | Popular | Future
Zappity-Doo-Dah
To be perfectly Frank, the boys don't know all that much about rock and roll's prickliest, most demanding composer/conceptualist/guitarist/ideologue, so they look at a couple of recordings by the maestro himself and a couple by other musicians paying homage to the man with a mustache. Burt Bacharach meets Hal Wilner's tribute to Thelonious Monk in a prize-winningly eclectic pop matters sequence. (No actual prizes were awarded). Playlist Discussion of Frank Zappa's album Roxy and Elsewhere (DiscReet Records) ...
read moreThe Bizarre World of Frank Zappa Tour at The Paramount
The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa Tour The Paramount Huntington, NY April 24, 2019 Frank Zappa was one of the most eclectic and influential musicians for the 20th Century. The musician, composer, activist and filmmaker's work and career exemplifies nonconformity, improvisational musical themes, sound experiments and technical musical virtuosity. Satire of the American experience and culture played a huge part in Zappa's oeuvre. Zappa's career was lengthy, lasting over 30 years. He composed and released ...
read moreI Sing the Lineup Eclectic
Cool organ, hot tenor, acapella movie theme and third-stream oboe musings—this episode has everything but a theme. While the albums discussed span the era from 1972 to 2014 the insights are timeless-probably. After that wide-ranging exploration of jazz and jazz adjacent fun, pop matters explores Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden as well as releases by Frank Zappa and Pulp. Playlist Discussion of Oregon's album Music of Another Present Era (Vanguard) 2:48 Discussion of Bennie Wallace's album The Free ...
read moreFrank Zappa's Jazz Legacy Refuses to Die, Part 2
This week we continue the retrospective dedicated to Frank Zappa's complex relationship with jazz, through a mix of the jazzier compositions performed by Zappa himself and countless tributes to his music paid by jazz musicians. As Frank Zappa loved to say, quoting Edgard Varèse, “the present day composer refuses to die" and the music featured in this show provides plenty of evidence that he was right. Happy listening! [The first part of this Frank ...
read moreFrank Zappa's Jazz Legacy Refuses to Die
Frank Zappa may have said “jazz is not dead, it just smells funny" but looking at his life and music one does not get the impression that he really believed that jazz was decomposing or dying a slow death. On Freak Out, one of the most impressive debut albums of all times, he included a list of 179 people that had influenced him, including jazz luminaries like Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy and Rahsaan Roland Kirk ...
read moreFrank Zappa: The Lost Broadcast - The Full Performance
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention The Lost Broadcast -The Full Performance Gonzo Multimedia 2016 There aren't many videos floating around of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, but The Lost Broadcast should be received with welcome arms by loyal Zappa enthusiasts and others who still have a burning interest in his legacy. Recorded in 1968 at the Beat Club in Bremen, Germany, and broadcasted for a German TV station in 1970, the ...
read moreZappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank?
The following is an excerpt from “Chapter 2: Early Encounters with Jazz" of Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank? by Geoffrey Wills (Matador, 2015). When, at the age of fourteen, Zappa entered Mission Bay High School in jny: San Diego in 1955, his first exposure to the elitist snobbery of a certain type of jazz fan occurred. It was like a red rag to a bull, and was no doubt the source of all ...
read moreFrank Zappa: Hammersmith Odeon
Frank ZappaHammersmith Odeon VAULTer Native Records2010 Christmas came early for Frank Zappa fans in 2010 with the release of Hammersmith Odeon on December 21, to celebrate the birthday of the late, great rock guitarist/composer/satirist who would have been 70, had he not passed away in 1993, just shy of turning 53. A three-CD set, culled from a series of early 1978 performances at the famous London venue used as the basic tracks ...
read moreGive The Drummer Some: On the record with Zappa's Drum Alumni
This excerpt appears in The Boy Who Cried Freebird: Rock & Roll Fables and Sonic Storytelling (Harper Paperbacks, 2008). Composer/bandleader/guitarist Frank Zappa needs no introduction. He was an incredibly prolific musician who died in December 1993, and his estate, the Zappa Trust, is still releasing new editions of never-before-heard recordings organized under the late maestro's supervision. While Zappa's legacy has been much discussed over the years, a brief overview of his relationship with drums and drummers is in ...
read moreFrank Zappa: The Grand Wazoo
Frank Zappa didn't invent the word “wazoo" or proliferate its usage. However, he was the first to use it in an album and song title that, surprisingly, had no accompanying provocative/potentially censorable lyrics. The Grand Wazoo is one of the most playful, scatologic-free and accessible big band jazz/rock CDs that Zappa--or anyone else--recorded. The aural quality of the album possesses a life-affirming spirit, while the intermittent blurps, bleeps and “inside" soap opera buffoonery--once salient features amidst often brilliant instrumental interludes ...
read moreZappa and Jazz
By Ed Palermo As leader of the Ed Palermo Big Band for the past 30 years, it was about 13 years ago, when my boyhood hero, Frank Zappa, died that I decided to put my own original compositions on hold and focus on the music of Zappa. I decided to pay tribute to the man who affected me musically more than anyone before or after. Prior to embarking on this project, my band was pretty much accustomed to ...
read moreInterpreting the Music of Frank Zappa: Ed Palermo Big Band & Struber Z'Tett
There have been a number of bands which have recorded rocker Frank Zappa's music over the past few decades, though jazz bands have only been exploring it for a fairly brief time. Two recent discs, one by a bandleader who has devoted himself to arranging 100s of Zappa compositions and another who may have only a fleeting interest, have issued albums primarily devoted to his music. Ed Palermo Big Band Take Your Clothes Off When You ...
read more
