Frank Black

Forget Black Friday, Franksgiving is the real event as today ushers in the long-awaited release of Alex Winter’s highly acclaimed documentary, ZAPPA, about the prolific genius composer, free speech activist, cultural ambassador to Czechoslovakia and legendary musician, Frank Zappa, as well as the surprise digital release of the corresponding ZAPPA Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. A perfect complement to the film, the 68-track soundtrack is available to stream and download now via Zappa Records/UMe. ZAPPA is now available in the U.S. on demand from Magnolia Pictures.

By 1981, Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows in New York were already legendary – a rock and roll bacchanalia of jaw-dropping musicianship, costume-clad revelry, spontaneous theatrical hijinks and of course a heavy dose of Zappa’s signature virtuosic guitar workouts. Eagerly anticipated every year, fans never knew exactly what was in store but knew it would be of epic proportions and one-of-a-kind experience that only Zappa and his skilled group of musicians could provide. When Zappa returned to The Palladium in NYC in 1981 for a five-show four-night run from October 29 to November 1, the nearly-annual tradition was even more anticipated than usual as the 1980 concerts were cut short due to Zappa falling ill. Curiously there was no fall tour the previous year and thus no Halloween shows.

Three complete shows from the Vault based on appearances made in and around the Vaultmeister’s hometown of Erie, PA: Edinboro College and Gannon University ’74 with Erie County Fieldhouse ’76. Also includes bonus tracks from the same tours. Three separate band line-ups, newly mixed from the original 4-Track tapes by Craig Parker Adams and mastered by John Polito at Audio Mechanics.

Grammy award winner, multi-instrumentalist and lead singer of the former Frank Zappa band Napoleon Murphy Brock and the Ensemble Musikfabrik are releasing an impressive concert recording of the Zappanale 2019 with "Bad Doberan & Elsewhere".

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American musician, composer, activist and filmmaker. His work was characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist…

This album is something of an anomaly in Frank Zappa's catalog. On all but two of the songs, Frank plays guitar, bass and keyboards. Terry Bozzio plays drums, and other favorites add tracks (Ruth Underwood, Roy Estrada and "Donnie" (van) Vliet, among others) to fill out the music. So among his seventies albums, this is more of a solo album than any.
Zappa proves himself to be a fair keyboardist. Although none of the keyboards stand out as great, they don't detract from the music either. And he tends to stay somewhat low key on the bass as well. The one place his bass stands out is on Friendly Little Finger, where Zappa is soloing on bass and guitar at the same time, with spectacular results.
The two guitar solo pieces are also outstanding. Black Napkins became one of Frank's signature guitar solos, and Zoot Allures is beautiful as well…

Released in 1988, Guitar may be the most important and ironically one of the least-known entries in Frank Zappa's voluminous discography – which spans over seven-dozen LPs as of this writing. His proficiencies as a composer and instrumentalist have long been lauded. However, anthologies of this nature provide an outlet for the remarkable breadth and depth of Zappa's manual dexterity and improvisational scope, which can now be enjoyed on a myriad of levels…

On June 18, Zappa’s historic, final American show will be released for the first time as the new live album, Zappa ’88: The Last U.S. Show via Zappa Records/UMe. The first posthumous archival release from the ‘88 touring band, the album features 29 unreleased performances including two additional performances from the same tour: Zappa’s wild interpretations of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Whipping Post” from the March 16 show in Providence, R.I. and Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” from the March 23 Towson, Md. show. The record is also notable for containing the first official release of the much talked about “The Beatles Medley.”