ONE SHOT DEAL

Oh, the wonders that must exist in the Zappa vault. Fifteen years after Frank's untimely demise, his wife Gail. and vaultmeister Joe Travers released this collection of live tracks and solos recorded at various times in the seventies.

The album begins with Bathtub Man, a straight blues number, with Napoleon Murphy Brock on vocals, and fine soloing by Zappa and George Duke. Space Boogers is a weird and cool percussive sounding experimental piece, with Zappa and Duke making noises over Chester Thompthe Abnuceals son's drumming. This blends into Hermitage with Zappa conducting the Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra in some more spacy weirdness. This melds seamlessly into Trudgin' Across the Tundra which features some of the players from the previous track (and others) with some great horn solos.

The next two tracks are guitar solos lifted out of context (like the "Shut Up" series). Occam's Razor should be familiar as the solo Zappa used for On The Bus on "Joe's Garage". Heidelberg was from a recording of Yo Mama. The rest of the album is more familiar. There's a fun version of The Illinois Enema Bandit, followed by an even more fun version of Yellow Snow, showing how Zappa could vary the arrangements of the favorites.

The album ends with the Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra again, playing Rollo.

This album is probably more for those familiar with Zappa's music, but it contains some great material.

Get it while it's hot.

Even though Zappa may be dead, he will never stop releasing albums. There are countless posthumous albums, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. (Which is hardly a surprise if anyone has ever seen a picture of the Zappa vault.) Unfortunately, these albums are very hit or miss, some of them being brilliant, others not being worth the price. This one falls right in middle. This album starts fairly strong, but also contains some average material. Overall though, I would put this firmly into the 'good' camp, and something that is certainly worth owning.

The album begins with Bathtub Man, a silly blues song with a nice keyboard solo. Then, the magic happens. Both Space Boogers and Hermitage are experimental pieces, emphasizing percussive sounds, guitar/keyboard noises, and sparse atmospheres. Trudgin' Across The Tundra is a wonderful jazzy piece with some wonderful horn solos. This piece almost seems out of place in Zappa's catalogue as it conveys such beauty and spacyiness that is a quality not often emphasized in Zappa's recordings. I do wish this section of the CD was longer, as it is the best stuff on the record. After this, we get some famous Zappa guitar solos, first from Inca Roads with Occam's Razor and then from Yo Mama with Heildelberg. Occam's Razor is pretty lovely (even though there are many Inca Roads solos out there) but Heildelberg feels fairly incomplete, as it starts to get interesting but then it just ends. The Illinois Enema Bandit is a fair version of the song, but not really offering anything all too different with other versions out there. Australian Yellow Snow contains the first two parts of the 'Yellow Snow' saga from Apostrophe, including a very fun opening section and some typical Zappa humor at the end. Rollo is a continuation of that suite, and ends the album on a majestic note.

All in all, this is a middle of the road type of album. Material like Space Boogers and Trudgin' Across The Tundra make this worth while for Zappa fans. However, some of the material feels incomplete (Heildelberg) or excessive (The Illinois Enema Bandit). Also, it doesn't feel like this brought much to the table. This is by no means a complete concert, or contains material by an unheard lineup. Perhaps if this contained a bit more material, the average stuff could be a bit more overlooked. However, for what it is I think 3 stars if a fair rating. Zappa fanatics probably already have this, but if you are and don't, I would. But I wouldn't recommend this for the Zappa newcomer. 3 stars.