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.