THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION: ABSOLUTELY FREE

I am ready to continue my examination of Frank Zappa's work beacuse I won't believe he is overrated. He seems to have inspired so many musicians that he must have something important to show me too. He was born 1940 and on this, his second record "Absolutely Free" from 1967 was he 27 years old. It is a "Mothers of invention"-record but the big Zappa portrait indicates he's the main brain. On these 44 minutes Zappa plays guitar and sings, Ray Collins sings, Roy Estrada plays bass, Don Preston plays keyboards, Bunk Gardner plays saxophone, Jimmy Carl Black plays drums and Bill Mundi plays drums.

1967 was before prog but in the midst of the psychedelic era. This music though isn't psychedelic but it is even more crazy. For me the confusion is not very pleasant. In one way it feels like the album is very artistic and I guess there are deep thoughts about all this stuff but for me it just feels whimpsy and obscene. I feel that it is very interesting music and there are a lot of moments when I hear the music is true professional. The best track for me is "Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin"(8/10) which starts with a beautiful Rimskij-Korsakov-theme. I also like the professionality in "Status back baby"(8/10). Zappa had a funny voice and his playful texts are clear in "The duke of prunes"(7/10) for example or"Call any vegetables"(7/10) and "Uncle Bernie's Farm"(7/10). Though do many of the greatest thoughts here drown in the loud mess of confusion.

When you think about that this was a very long time ago you understand Frank Zappa and his mothers were doing something really new. It's fair to call it revolutionary. I would though like more music and less chatting. Some tracks are just annoying. This is interesting but not in my taste, three stars!