ROXY & ELSEWHERE

By the time it was released in the seventies, I paid little attention to this album as it did not sound like Genesis or Yes or ELP where I thought were different from other rock music in that era. For me personally, "Roxy & Elsewhere" fit only with the music of seventies standard rock. So I didn't play this live album a lot and I preferred playing The Lamb Lies Down or Selling England or Nursery Cryme by Genesis or Relayer, Close To The Edge by Yes. But I found later that this album had some prog elements especially in the use of violin, brass section and keyboard (by George Duke). I gave it a try and I did enjoy it even though I consider this is 80% classic rock while only 20% prog elements.

It's a classic live album by Zappa which as usual with a unique Zappa communication style with the crowd like he does in the Preamble to explain what the song "Penguin in Bondage" means. It's a rocking track with humorous vocals of Zappa and stunning classic rock guitar sounds. The violin work as well as brass section at this track is also unique. Yes, the nuance is truly a classic rock concert with sometime Zappa does a lot of dialogue with the crowd while the music only plays at the background. It continues seamlessly with "Pygmy Twylyte" (2:13) and "Dummy Up" (6:02). The music is a combination of rock, funk with some jazzy touch. The live album concludes with a relatively long track with some introductory remarks by Fank Zappa, "Be-Bop Tango (Of the Old Jazzmen's Church)" (16:41). With the kind of complex opening this final track offers, I can understand that this is a progressive act by Frank Zappa. The intro part reminds me to the kind of traditional music in Jakarta, Indonesia called as "Tanjidor". The variety of styles offered by this track has made it truly rich in composition. The trombone solo is completely accompanied by jazz music as rhythm section. "Jazz is not dead it's just smell funny ." says Zappa during the preparation of the real Be Bop Tango dance on stage followed with George Benson's like singing style. Interesting live show. Zappa invited the crowd to come up on stage "Rick and Jane and Carl, . Lana, Brenda, etc.".

It's an excellent live music that demonstrates humorous live performance by Zappa / Mothers. It confirms that humor does belong to music. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW