Hot Rats [Original recording remastered]

Now, repeat after me...
"I'm a little pimp with my hair gassed back
Pair a khaki pants with my shoe shined black.."

The jamming that goes on in 'Willie the Pimp' is second to none. This jam fest could easily fit in on any of the jam fests that either Dave Matthews or Derek Trucks warps around the country (and I have seen DMB live and his jamming is so much better than his recorded studio bleck). Jamming non stop for well over 10 minutes in styles that you can actually hum to.

This recording was considered by FZ to be his favorite.. at least that was what he said in at least two interviews I have read, and I must say it is packed full of wonderful songs, from the delicate dessert like wonderfulness of Peaches En Regalia to the muscle outperform anything on earth songs like THE GUMBO VARIATIONS/WILLIE THE PIMP. I actually think that TGV and WTP can be merged together in one big 24 minute jam for any band with the chops.

I love this CD, it is never far from my player whenever I need a good Jam fix, and Grateful Dead or whatever just aren't muscular enough for the workout that FZ gives you on this outing.

This is every inch of 5 stars without any trouble.

In recent years, most notable are the "Big Band" recordings of Ed Palermo and French crazylocos Le Bocal and also the "modern musics" (I hesitate to use the word "classical") Of the Ensemble Modern and Grupo Ambrosius. Some of the ex-Mothers make some nice noise also!

The reason I write is because I believe this recording was a "bridge" for (if I can paint in black and white only for a minute) the Zappatistas who came to Frank's musics from the "rock musics" perspective , and those who came from more jazz/classical/avant-guarde. even "dadaista" persuasions.

To veer the path a moment, the recordings of Zappa's "Hot Rats" are now avaliable as
~the existing CD, and
~the "original mix" from the disc recorded so long ago.

That Zappa remixed his great work, well ..

I only wish that BOTH versions were avaliable on the CD , and possible some day they will is at least a "dream".

I think it would be fair to the compositions ,as there are moments in both recordings that add and detract from the original and remixed versions.(IMO, the original mix is more subtle, for the record).

Back to my original thought,
Zappa's most "jazzistic" compositions "Little Umbrellas", "It Must Be A Camel", and the (finally!) much heralded "Peaches en Regalia" Are side to side with the rock/fusion musician's dream tunes, "Willie the Pimp" and "The Gumbo Variations".

And "Son of Mr Green Genes" is , of course , one of MANY FZ 's recycled melodies , simple but with the underlying harmonic structure giving it compositional "depth", not to mention the joking, quase-surreal" lyrics.

Judging from the recent recordings , by musicians of the same "1st division" high caliber talent, the reason their efforts are so interesting is that they keep the Zappa spirit of the musical "polyglot" alive.

The "jazz " compositions have the urgency of "rockmusics", and the rockmusics compositions an underlying sofistication associated with jazz/classical musics.

So I suppose to overdo it and proclaim,
10000000 stars for this recording, much has already been said. And to compel Zappatistas everywhere to find these "tribute" recordings, either on your own, or to look for some of my reviews on those recordings here at Amazon also in coming days.