Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa's 200 Motels turns 50! In celebration of FZ’s famous 1971 “Surrealistic Documentary,” Zappa Records, UMe and MGM are pleased to present the original 2-disc soundtrack featuring a brand-new remaster by legend Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering.

As if his music were not challenging enough, he overlay it with highly satirical and sometimes abstractly humorous lyrics and song titles that marked him as coming out of a provocative literary tradition that included Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and edgy comedians like Lenny Bruce. Nominally, he was a popular musician, but his recordings rarely earned significant airplay or sales, yet he was able to gain control of his recorded work and issue it successfully through his own labels while also touring internationally, in part because of the respect he earned from a dedicated cult of fans and many serious musicians, and also because he was an articulate spokesman who promoted himself into a media star through extensive interviews he considered to be a part of his creative effort just like his music.

Composer, guitarist, singer, and bandleader Frank Zappa was a singular musical figure during a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1960s to the '90s. His disparate influences included doo wop music and avant-garde classical music; although he led groups that could be called rock & roll bands for much of his career, he used them to create a hybrid style that bordered on jazz and complicated, modern serious music, sometimes inducing orchestras to play along. As if his music were not challenging enough, he overlay it with highly satirical and sometimes abstractly humorous lyrics and song titles that marked him as coming out of a provocative literary tradition that included Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and edgy comedians like Lenny Bruce.

A comprehensive 4-CD box set celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Mothers Of Invention/Hot Rats/Grand Wazoo experience from 1972. During the aftermath of being pushed off the stage at the Rainbow Theatre in London, England, FZ found himself recuperating for months in his home in Laurel Canyon. Although he was confined to a wheelchair, his work ethic could not be tamed. During this time, he managed, among other things, to assemble an ensemble that quenched his thirst and desire to work with a large “Electric Orchestra.” Ultimately, a 20-piece group was contracted, along with recording sessions and an 8-city tour. Shortly thereafter, a scaled down 10-piece configuration, now known as the “Petit Wazoo” toured for almost two months. After all was said and done, FZ finished the experiment with two albums in the can, Waka/Jawaka & The Grand Wazoo, plus two tours and an archive of show masters in his Vault. It was a monumental feat for a guy with a cast on his leg and a conductor’s baton in his hand.

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader. His work is 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. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse rock musicians of his era.

Zappa charts the late icon’s career as a self-taught teenaged musician with a taste for the avant-garde to his pioneering Mothers of Invention and his many musical left turns, as well as his censorship battle with the Parents Music Resource Center and the productive years prior to his death.“Frank embodied everything,” Mothers of Invention percussionist Ruth Underwood says in the trailer. “You couldn’t say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s rock n’ roll.’ It wasn’t. ‘It’s jazz.’ No. ‘It’s pop music.’ No. ‘What the hell is it?’ It’s Zappa.”

Mudd Club / Munich '80« vereint zwei historische Auftritte der Band aus dem Frühjahr / Sommer 1980.

CLASSIC 1978 BROADCAST FROM GERMANY S THEN DIVIDED CITY After falling out with his long-time manager Herb Cohen, Frank Zappa spent much of the late 1970s in a legal battle with Cohen and later with Warner Brothers too. With the majority of his own recorded material thus tied up, Zappa concentrated on touring with a small, rock-oriented band. March 1978 witnessed the release of Zappa In New York, recorded live with a 13-strong band at the Palladium in late December 1976. Demonstrating in equal measure Zappa s extraordinary ability as a composer and fearless approach to controversial topics, the record reached a respectable No. 57 on the Billboard chart. Two standout numbers from In New York, Titties & Beer and The Black Page , would be a fixture of Zappa sets by the time his 1978 European tour rolled around, as the concert featured on this two CD set can attest.

Composer, guitarist, singer, and bandleader Frank Zappa was a singular musical figure during a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1960s to the '90s. His disparate influences included doo wop music and avant-garde classical music; although he led groups that could be called rock & roll bands for much of his career, he used them to create a hybrid style that bordered on jazz and complicated, modern serious music, sometimes inducing orchestras to play along.