ZAPPA '75: ZAGREB/LJUBLJANA

This is an interesting live release for Zappa fanatics largely because we've not heard so much from this particular lineup of Zappa, Terry Bozzio, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Roy Estrada, Andre Lewis, and Norma Jean Bell. It's a touring group that Zappa formed in late 1975, after the dissolution of the mid-1970s version of the Mothers of Invention and the Orchestral Favorites experiments, and which lasted just long enough to contribute a little to Zoot Allures before being mostly dissolved, with Zappa retaining Bozzio and then recruiting Eddie Jobson and Patrick O'Hearn as the core of his next lineup.

This missing link between the One Size All and Zoot Allures eras finds Zappa shifting to a more muscular sound with more traditional rock instrumentation (farewell, Ruth Underwood and her galaxy of percussion instruments) and making the most of that sort of setup. We get updates on old songs, and we get some new material like Black Napkins, Zoot Alures, and the Illinois Enema Bandit, the latter being one of Zappa's more misjudged lyrics (is it really funny to laugh at sexual assault?). Chunga's Revenge gets a long and pretty decent workout, at that. In the end, this might not be one of Zappa's more essential live albums, but it's worth it if you're interested in this lineup, since the closest other live release I'm aware of featuring it is FZ:OZ, and Norma Bell isn't on that (a shame, because her sax contributions here are on point).