When that crazed fan pushed
Frank Zappa off the stage of the Rainbow Theatre in London in December of 1971,
he couldn’t have known the long-term effect his actions would have on the
composer’s subsequent career.
That Zappa had a subsequent career
is something of a miracle. He suffered severe head trauma, multiple fractures
and injuries to his back, legs and neck. He spent the majority of the next year
in a wheelchair, and one of his legs healed incorrectly, causing it to be
longer than the other. (See the lyric in “Dancin’ Fool,” released in 1979.) His
voice also dropped considerably, due to a crushed larynx.
It would be nine months
before Zappa would return to live performance, and even then, he was limited –
he still wore a leg brace and couldn’t stand for long periods of time. During
those nine months, Zappa literally had nothing else to do but recover, and
write.
And so he wrote. Zappa
finally took the time to compose music for larger ensembles – not as large as
the orchestra he worked with on 200
Motels, but much more vast than his usual Mothers lineups. And he took the
opportunity to explore jazz in a way he never had, writing for a shifting,
rotating group of musicians with at least one foot in that world. This would
not be the arena-filling comedy rock of the past few years. This would be music
he could write from bed and organize and conduct from a wheelchair.
The results are unlike
anything Zappa had attempted before. Zappa’s two new 1972 albums, Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo, stand alone in his catalog, a pair of dense,
jazzy, mostly instrumental works featuring some of the finest players he’d ever
worked with. The Mothers had disbanded by the time Zappa was ready to record
this material – only drummer Aynsley Dunbar and keyboardist Don Preston
remained for these sessions. But Zappa pulled from jazz and the burgeoning
jazz-rock fusion circles, and came up with multiple fascinating ensembles.
There are 16 musicians on Waka/Jawaka, and it’s the smaller of the
two records in scope. It consists of two swinging pop songs and two extended
instrumental jazz-rock jams. The front cover illustration features a sink with
the words “hot” and “rats” written on the spigots, which have led some to
consider this a sequel to one of Zappa’s most popular records. But while the
improvisatory tone is the same, the sound of this record bears no resemblance
to Hot Rats.
Opener “Big Swifty” is, in
fact, clearly influenced by Miles Davis – his Bitches Brew came out in April of 1970, helping to ignite a darker
outgrowth of fusion. “Big Swifty” follows this pattern – it’s 17 minutes long,
takes up the entire first side, and aside from a few minutes of composition at
the beginning and the end, it’s a Bitches Brew-style jam. George Duke’s
electric piano echoes Herbie Hancock’s work with the same instrument, while
Zappa trades licks on guitar with Sal Marquez on heavily echoed trumpet. Dunbar
and a bassist named Erroneous keep everything from floating off into space.
The second side opens with
its two most accessible numbers, the shorter tunes “Your Mouth” and “It Just
Might Be a One-Shot Deal.” They both have very Zappa lyrics – “Your Mouth” is a
blues piece about a man with a shotgun and a woman who won’t shut up, and
“One-Shot Deal” is about a frog with a satchel – and tight melodies. Zappa
himself doesn’t sing on these tunes, leaving the vocals to Marquez, Chris
Peterson and Janet Ferguson. Tony Duran’s slide guitar in the latter song is a
highlight.
The album concludes with the
11-minute title track, which points the way forward for many similar songs in
the coming years. It’s a groove-rock jam, a full horn section giving way to
solos by Zappa and Preston while Dunbar and Erroneous dance around Zappa’s
fluid acoustic playing. “Waka/Jawaka” shows off Zappa’s gift for arranging
horns, particularly in the final minutes. While some of the record is dark, the
finale is like breaking sunshine.
Waka/Jawaka
sets Zappa off on a path few could have envisioned him taking, but he proves to
be a natural at it. While The Grand Wazoo
is overall more effective (and more daring), the first of Zappa’s “wheelchair
albums” is a fine effort, delivering what all the finest Zappa records do best:
exceptional musicians playing exceptionally well.
Rating:
Worthy.
Which version to buy: Definitely the 2013 Zappa/Universal remaster, based
on the original 1972 analog master. The horns are crisp and clear, and the
entire album sounds much better than it did on Ryko’s master in the 1990s.
Next week: The
Grand Wazoo.
No comments:
Post a Comment