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Ruth Underwood
Ruth Underwood (born Ruth Komanoff; May 23, 1946) is an American musician best known for playing xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, and other percussion instruments in Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. She collaborated with the Mothers of Invention from 1968 to 1977. Life and career Underwood began her music training in the classical tradition, studying both at Ithaca College under Warren Benson and at Juilliard under Saul Goodman (timpani) and Morris Goldenberg (percussion). Throughout 1967, she kept a regular attendance at the Garrick Theater in New York City when Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention were the resident band. This resulted in her association with Zappa, beginning in December 1967. In May 1969 she married keyboardist/saxophonist Ian Underwood, a fellow Zappa musician. They divorced in 1986. Professionally she used both her birth name, Ruth Komanoff, and her married name. Underwood performed in more than 30 recordings with Zappa or Mothers. Examples of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz-rock
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll. Jazz fusion arrangements vary in complexity. Some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a single key or a single chord with a simple, repeated melody. Others use elaborate chord progressions, unconventional time signatures, or melodies with counter-melodies. These arrangements, whether simple or complex, typically include improvised sections that can vary in length, much like in other forms of jazz. As with jazz, jazz fusion can employ brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone, but other instruments often substitute for these. A jazz fusion band is less likely to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lewiston, New York
Lewiston is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 15,944 at the 2020 census. The town and its contained village are named after Morgan Lewis, a governor of New York. The Town of Lewiston is on the western border of the county. The Village of Lewiston is within the town. History The Town of Lewiston was formed in 1818 from the town of Cambria. Lewiston was the first European settlement in Western New York. A French explorer by the name of Etienne Brûlée arrived in 1615. Government The Town Supervisor is Steve Broderick and the Chief of Police is Frank Previte. The Town Supervisor is considered the "Chief Fiscal Officer" for the Town. In this capacity, the officeholder oversees all finances as well as presiding at Town Board meetings, representing the Town for the Niagara County Water District, Niagara County Sewer District, Niagara Greenway Commission and Niagara Power Coalition. The Supervisor also serves as an ex-officio board me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ambrosia (band)
Ambrosia is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1970. Ambrosia had five top 40 hit singles released between 1975 and 1980, including the top 5 hits "How Much I Feel" and "Biggest Part of Me", and top 20 hits "You're the Only Woman (You & I)" and "Holdin' on to Yesterday". Most of the original band members have been active with the group continuously for over thirty years to the present day, with the notable exception of original lead vocalist and guitarist David Pack since 2000. Ambrosia currently tours internationally and has worked in the past and present with Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Alan Parsons, Bruce Hornsby, Bill Champlin, Michael McDonald and Peter Beckett among other notable artists. Formation The group was founded as a quartet with guitarist/vocalist David Pack, bassist/vocalist Joe Puerta, keyboardist Christopher North and drummer Burleigh Drummond. According to Joe Puerta, their original name was "Ambergris Mite," but after do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Session Musician
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a tour. Session musicians are usually not permanent or official members of a musical ensemble or band. They work behind the scenes and rarely achieve individual fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders. However, top session musicians are well known within the music industry, and some have become publicly recognized, such as the Wrecking Crew, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and The Funk Brothers who worked with Motown Records. Many session musicians specialize in playing common rhythm section instruments such as guitar, piano, bass, or drums. Others are specialists, and play brass, woodwinds, and strings. Many session musicians play multiple instruments, which lets them play in a wider range of musical situations, genres an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
200 Motels
''200 Motels'' is a 1971 surrealist musical film written and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer, and featuring music by Zappa. An international co-production of United States and the United Kingdom, the film stars the Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. A soundtrack album was released in the same year, with a slightly different selection of music. Plot The film attempts to portray the craziness of life on the road as a rock musician, and as such consists of a series of unconnected nonsense vignettes interspersed with concert footage of the Mothers of Invention. Ostensibly, while on tour The Mothers of Invention go crazy in the small fictional town of Centerville ("a real nice place to raise your kids up"), wander around, and get beaten up in "Redneck Eats", a cowboy bar. In an animated interlude passed off as a "dental hygiene movie", bassist "Jeff", tired of playing what he refers to as "Zappa's comedy music", is persuaded by his bad conscience to quit th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One Size Fits All (Frank Zappa Album)
''One Size Fits All'' is the tenth studio album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, released in June 1975. It is the band's last studio album. A special four-channel quadraphonic version of the album was advertised but not released. Band The album features the summer/fall 1974 lineup of the Mothers of Invention, with keyboardist/vocalist George Duke, drummer Chester Thompson, percussionist Ruth Underwood, bass guitarist Tom Fowler and saxophonist/vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock. “Can’t Afford No Shoes” features James Youman instead of Fowler. When Fowler had broken his hand while on tour, Youman temporarily replaced him. Album content The album features one of Zappa's most complex tracks, "Inca Roads". One of Zappa's heroes, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, guests on two tracks ("flambé" vocals on the out-choruses of "San Ber'dino" and "Andy"). Captain Beefheart also appears under a pseudonym. Zappa stated in the liner notes that the album was recorded simultaneously wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inca Roads (song)
"Inca Roads" is the opening track of the Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention 1975 album, ''One Size Fits All''. The song features unusual time signatures, lyrics and vocals. The marimba-playing of Zappa's percussionist Ruth Underwood is featured prominently. The song was played in concert from 1970 to 1976, 1979 and 1988. Themes "Inca Roads" for the most part explores the stereotypes of aliens encountering the Incan civilization. These themes, like the album cover of ''One Size Fits All'' seem to parody the spirituality of many progressive rock albums around the same era. The lyrics "Did a vehicle come from somewhere out there, just to land in the Andes? Was it round and did it have a motor or was it something different?" imply that a UFO is landing in the Andes Mountains. As the song progresses, the lyrics become sillier and seem to mock the beginning of the song. An example of this is "...or did someone build a place or leave a space for Chester's thing to land (Chester's t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roxy & Elsewhere
''Roxy & Elsewhere '' is a double live album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers, released on September 10, 1974. Most of the songs were recorded on December 8, 9 and 10, 1973 at The Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, California. Overview The material taken from the Roxy concerts was later amended with some overdubs in the studio, while the "Elsewhere" tracks ("Son of Orange County" and "More Trouble Every Day") were recorded on May 8, 1974, at the Edinboro State College, Edinboro, Pennsylvania (and parts of "Son of Orange County" on May 11, 1974, at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Illinois (late show) and do not contain overdubbed material. History Album The album primarily comprised recordings from three shows at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood, and featured tracks never before or thereafter released on any Zappa/Mothers album. The opening track, "Penguin in Bondage" is edited together from performances at the Roxy and the Chicago date. The guitar solo on "Son of Orange County" is one of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apostrophe (')
''Apostrophe (')'' is the fifth solo studio album and eighteenth in total by Frank Zappa, released in March 1974 in both Stereophonic sound, stereo and Quadraphonic sound, quadraphonic formats. An edited version of its lead-off track, "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow", was the first of Zappa's three ''Billboard'' Top 100 hits, ultimately peaking at number 86. The album itself became the biggest commercial success of Zappa's career, reaching number 10 on the US Billboard 200, ''Billboard'' 200. Overview ''Apostrophe (')'' remains Zappa's most commercially successful album in the United States. It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, RIAA on April 7, 1976 and peaked at number 10 (a career-high placement) on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart in 1974. Continuing from the commercial breakthrough of ''Over-Nite Sensation'' (1973), this album is a similar mix of short songs showcasing Zappa's humor and musical arrangements. The record's lyrical themes are often bizarr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Married Name
When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" is also used as a gender-neutral or masculine substitute for maiden name), whereas a married name is a family name or surname adopted by a person upon marriage. In some jurisdictions, changing names requires a legal process. When people marry or divorce, the legal aspects of changing names may be simplified or included, so that the new name is established as part of the legal process of marrying or divorcing. Traditionally, in the Anglophone West, women are far more likely to change their surnames upon marriage than men, but in some instances men may change their last names upon marriage as well, including same-sex couples. In this article, ''birth name'', ''family name'', ''surname'', ''married name'' and ''maiden name'' refer to patrilineal sur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Underwood
Ian Robertson Underwood (born May 22, 1939) is a woodwind and keyboards player, known for his work with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Biography Underwood graduated from The Choate School in 1957 and Yale University with a bachelor's degree in composition in 1961 and a master's degree in composition at UC Berkeley in 1966. He began his career by playing San Francisco Bay Area coffeehouses and bars with his improvisational group, the Jazz Mice, in the mid-1960s before he became a member of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in 1967 for their third studio album, ''We're Only in It for the Money''. He speaks on ''Uncle Meat''; on the track "Ian Underwood Whips It Out" he relates how he first met Zappa and demonstrated his capabilities on the saxophone at Zappa's invitation. Underwood later worked with Frank Zappa on his solo recordings, including 1969's '' Hot Rats''. He married Ruth Komanoff (Underwood), marimbist/percussionist from the Mothers of Invention in Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Late Show (British TV Programme)
''The Late Show'' (1989–1995) is a British television arts magazine programme that was broadcast on BBC2 weeknights at 11.15pm—directly after ''Newsnight''—often referred to as the "graveyard slot" in terms of television scheduling. Details The programme was commissioned by BBC2 Controller Alan Yentob, who had a background in serious arts documentaries, but the production team – led by Michael Jackson – were mostly from youth programming backgrounds including ''Network 7''. The programme combined a number of format elements from earlier BBC arts magazine programmes such as ''Monitor'' and '' Late Night Line-Up''. Once a week, during the first two series, the slot featured a round-table discussion hosted by Clive James on Friday nights. With the cancellation of ''The Old Grey Whistle Test'', ''The Late Show'' featured music performances, live or pre-recorded, including Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Public Enemy, Joni Mitchell, The Stone Roses, Dick Dale, The Cramps, The S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
