random notes
Album Liner Notes
If Zappa were writing the notes, he would surely warn you immediately of the
total lack of commercial potential He is not alone in his awareness of the value
of reverse psychology. I am so concerned about the success of this album that I
wouldn't dream of recommending it.
Necessity was the mother of Jean-Luc Ponty. Nothing truly new had
happened in jazz violin - well, nothing that made any impact - since Ray Dance
joined Duke, almost 30 years ago. Dick Bock was the mother of collaboration.
"I'd heard more and more about Frank Zappa in jazz circles. Then Frank
played me some of the "Hot Rats" album, which he was still working on.
It was hard to pigeonhole; just fascinating instrumental music. Then I took an
acetate of Jean-Luc to Frank's house. A few days later Jean-Luc played on a
"Hot Rats" track. (Not available at this counter; try Bizarre
Records.}
As Ponty and Zappa promptly developed an interest in each other's music
the concept of a collaborative project was born. Frank was particularly
concerned) with the development of an extended orchestral work, a formal piece
tied to no one idiom and allowing Ponty interludes of expressive freedom. Music
For Electric Violin and Low Budget Orchestra (a title decided upon, one
suspects, after Zappa had asked Bock for a 97-piece ensembles is illustrative of
Zappa's mastery not only of composition and orchestration, but also of
transition. It emerges not as a segmented series of ideas arbitrarily linked
together, but as a securely integrated whole that moves with almost subliminal
subtlety from one tempo, meter, mood or idiom to another, and from reading to
blowing; from the opening bassoon figure to the demonic closing violin passages
in 7/8, it sustains the validity throughout its multi-textured duration.
The long work was conducted by Ian Underwood, former alto saxophonist and
keyboardist with the Mothers of Invention, possessor of a bachelor's from Yale
and a master's from Berkeley in piano and composition.
"Don Christlieb is one of the best bassoonists around, especially
for the avant garde," says F.Z. "He has played Stockhausen and does
regular concerts of contemporary music." He is also the father of Pete
Christlieb, one of Hollywood's brightest new jazz tenor saxes. .
Arthur D. Tripp, III, formerly the Mothers' percussionist, spent two
years with the Cincinnati Symphony. {Zappa: "He really gets into those
meters.") Buell Neidlinger, a premature jazz avantist, played with Cecil
Taylor and Gil Evans in the 1950s. "He's with the Boston Symphony now N
says Frank, "but I had to fly him out of there-he's the only man I can
think of who could play the bass par' on the long piece.''
Of the compositions on side one, it need only be said that they place
Ponty in settings generally closer to jazz lit that term is still capable of
definitions, the first three being basically in three and composed by Zappa. The
Ponty number (composed by Jean- Luc, in four, arranged by Zappa} is the easiest
blowing track, a G 7 vamp that provides a base for some of his most resourceful
and unpredictable shifting of phrases, dissonant concepts and hard-swinging,
post-Stuff Smith execution.
For me, the blowing on "How Would You Like To Have A Head" Like
That constitute Ponty's best work in the album. For Zappa, Jean-Luc's peak is
reached on "Idiot
Bastard Son". For both of us, George Duke is a phenomenon throughout
all tracks. "I'm only surprised N Frank comments That he didn't happen
sooner." He certainly has happened now, with a little help from friends
Bock and Ponty, on earlier collaborations, on records and in person.
Analyzing the overall performances, one could point out a number of
details, like the ingenuity of the slowed-down pulse at the climatic point in
"King Kong", the tight teamwork between Ponty and Ernie Watts on
"Cigars," Ernie's solo and Zappa's wah-wah assertions on
"Head." One would be wasting one's time, since they are all clearly
enough recorded to be heard without lectures or blackboard illustrations. A
final word must be added, though, for the brief closing track on side 2,
"America Drinks And Goes Home" has a put-on flavor, a quixotic
rhythmic and melodic quality almost a touch of the Zeitgeist of Cabaret. John
Guerin was allowed total freedom, George Duke gets into the feel of the piece,
which, as Frank says, "suggests a bunch of drunks leaning up against a
bar." The galloping finale brings the work to a disarmingly abrupt end.
Like "idiot Bastard Son" and "King Kong," this was
previously recorded by the Mothers. Just as it mirrors the growing unification
of all musics, the Ponty-Zappa fusion shows that if you team a freaky French
fiddler from over there with a master of the bizarre and the guitar from over
here, what might seem to invite double jeopardy produces double sgenius.
Leonard Feather
Composed and Arranged by Frank Zappa
"How Would You Like To Have A Head Like That"
Composed by Jean-Luc Ponty
FZ: "We're having five sessions for the Ponty album
and with all the musicians who are on it we've got a budget of eight thousand
dollars."
PONTY INTERVIEW, April 22, 1997
LE JAZZ - Tell
us how you met Zappa.
JEAN LUC PONTY - My producer didn't know Zappa personally, but he encouraged me to get out and meet other musicians. Zappa was already famous, even among jazz musicians, for his sophisticated instrumental style. I realized that we were very different on many levels. For a long time I resisted doing anything other than mainstream jazz. My producer wanted me to do Californian things of the period, even very commercial things, but that didn't appeal to me at all. But I knew Zappa wasn't into easy music, that he did serious work. So we got together and Zappa was impressed right away by what I was doing with George Duke. At the time, George Duke was an unknown young pianist. My producer asked Zappa to arrange his music for my next album under my name. He accepted, and he was ready two or three weeks later. This was around the time he was recording "Hot Rats," and he suggested I go by the studio to see how he worked. Three weeks after that we recorded "King Kong," which was really unorthodox for me. Thanks to my classical background, I had no trouble with any of the written music. He had hired musicians he often used for his own records, jazz musicians, really, from the Los Angeles studios. I insisted on using George Duke, because we were always playing together. I wanted to have at least one musician I knew. It was a very interesting experience. We were curious about each other. He was interested in jazz and above all in contemporary classical music. He was very interested by my mix of a classical background and the ability to improvise. That's why he called me later to ask me to join his group, the Mothers of Invention, for a tour of America in 1976. That was the second time we worked together, and it was based on a misunderstanding. Zappa had asked George Duke to join the Mothers of Invention. But George felt kind of lonely among all those rockers, and he left Zappa to go with Cannonball Adderley. He passed through Paris with Cannonball, and told me a group was being put together in Los Angeles and his manager wanted me to be part of it. George told me, "If you accept, I will too." But I hadn't understood it was to play in Zappa's group. In the end I found myself in Los Angeles, touring with Zappa. It was again a very interesting experience at the beginning, because Zappa took out all the very complex instrumental music that he had stashed in his desk for a long time since it was too sophisticated for the previous members of the Mothers. He had written music that was very influenced by Stravinsky, so he wanted to put together a group of excellent instrumentalists. But the public lost interest quickly, and he had to go back to satire and more commercial rock. That wasn't what I wanted to do, so I left after only seven months. He didn't take it well at all and we parted on very bad terms.
LE JAZZ - Another
important musical encounter was
John McLaughlin, with whom you
played for almost a year and
recorded two albums.
JEAN LUC PONTY
- John
is English, and he'd read
about me in the European music
press. We met in New York, when he had come over from England to
play with Tony
Williams. When he
started the first Mahavishnu
Orchestra, he was
going to give
me a call,
but his manager was against it because
I lived in France. But in 1974, for
the second Mahavishnu
Orchestra, I was in
the United States. We toured
together for a month, Zappa's group and Mahavishnu. With John I was much more in
my element, musically, especially since the group was doing purely instrumental
music.
LE JAZZ - Was
McLaughlin very demanding technically ?
JEAN LUC PONTY -
Less so than Zappa. He was demanding in that he knew what he wanted, but
it was nothing extraordinary, particularly for me with my classical
background.
AFFZ Notes and Comments
Subject: Re: How Would You Like To Have A Head Like That
From:
Patrick Neve (splat@darkwing.uoregon.edu)
Try singing the title of this song along to the Jean-Luc Ponty composition.. it
fits perfectly!
From: Peter ^Ùberg (PETEROBE@vbtn.sr.se)
Yes, I've always wondered if there might be a version with lyrics lurking
somewhere.
From:
Paul Hinrichs (paulhinr@mindspring.com)
It's so we can analyze them without there ACTUALLY being any lyrics. In this
case, IMO, "head" is used in the vernacular musical sense, like, you
know, the main theme.
From:
Michael Gula (mikegula@MORESPAMerols.com)
It contains the ONLY recording of "Twenty Small Cigars" that tells us
how the tune goes after the fade-out on the Chunga's Revenge album.
When I first heard George Duke's solo on King Kong, I said
to myself, "Wow! That guy is fantastic! Wish Zappa would hire guys like him
to play in his band!"
Additionally, the version of "America Drinks And Goes
Home" includes a delightfully intoxicated-sounding "new" section
written by FZ which you will hear nowhere else... the "lopsided"
rhythmic gyrations in the "new" section of "America Drinks and
Goes Home", just before the vocal interjections. What the hell *are* those
things? Pay special attention to the way Duke and Johnny Guerin play on that
track. Ponty barely has a presence there...Duke and Guerin OWN that track!
"Low-Budget Orchestra" is an early version of the
piece available on Studio Tan/Läther--comparing the two versions is a
fascinating pursuit. It alone is worth more than double the price of the CD.
What about the lovely version of "Duke of Prunes"
that pops up for no obvious reason in "Low Budget Orchestra!" Just
listen to the way Duke phrases his solo. Pure genius!
And tell me honestly now, Weren't you surprised when you
first heard the "missing" measures in "Low Budget"...right
around measure 53? To this day when I hear the Läther version I expect to hear
them there! I wish FZ had explained why he took those measures out.
And it has my absolutely favorite version of "Pound
For a Brown" (not even mentioned in the track listing) in the close of
"Low Budget Orchestra." Again, listen to Duke's wild, atonal
"mutant" jazz solo during the handclapping section.
Essential, absolutely essential for anyone interested in
Zappa!
From:
Ken Walter (kwalter@home.com)
The LP version was not on Blue Note (I believe the "Cantaloupe Island"
reissue was) but on World Pacific Jazz Records (ST-20172). There are at least
two versions of the back cover, one with two photos that included FZ and one
with two different photos. The original copy I bought in 1974 had the Zappa
photos. Did he make Ponty remove the photos at some point? There is an interview
where he really disses Ponty somewhere.
I wonder if FZ got mad at Ponty and made him change the
photos?
The CD reissue had no photos.
