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The Old Masters
''The Old Masters'' is a box set series by Frank Zappa, released in three volumes on Barking Pumpkin Records from April 1985 to December 1987, consisting of studio and live albums by Zappa and The Mothers of Invention originally released from 1966 to 1976 on other labels, as well as "Mystery Discs" which contained previously unreleased material. The graphics (not including the photo inserts) on all three sets was airbrush illustrated by Larry Grossman. The box sets contained new masters mixed and edited by Zappa in his Utility Muffin Research Kitchen home studio, prepared for the compact disc format. The albums were remixed and reedited, and are substantially different from their original releases. The series was well received by critics, although some criticism was aimed at Zappa's alterations, most notably the decision to rerecord the rhythm sections of the albums '' We're Only in It for the Money'' and '' Cruising with Ruben & the Jets'', which provoked a lawsuit over unp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, Virtuoso, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and ''musique concrète'' works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation. As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overdub
Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more available tracks of a digital audio workstation (DAW) or tape recorder. The overdub process can be repeated multiple times. This technique is often used with singers, as well as with instruments, or ensembles/orchestras. Overdubbing is typically done for the purpose of adding richness and complexity to the original recording. For example, if there are only one or two artists involved in the recording process, overdubbing can give the effect of sounding like many performers. In vocal performances, the performer usually listens to an existing recorded performance (usually through headphones in a recording studio) and simultaneously plays a new performance along with it, which is also recorded. The intention is that the final mix will contain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sleep Dirt
''Sleep Dirt'' is an album by Frank Zappa released in January 1979, on his own DiscReet Records label. It reached #175 on the ''Billboard'' 200 album chart in the United States. Zappa's original title for the album was ''Hot Rats III''. As the original title implies, Zappa saw this as a sort of follow up to his earlier Jazz influenced Rock albums such as ''Hot Rats'' (1969) and '' Waka/Jawaka — Hot Rats'' (1972). Some of the songs on this album were originally written in 1972 for a Zappa stage musical called ''Hunchentoot''. A complete script exists, but the recordings for this project were never completed. Recording sessions The music was recorded at the Los Angeles Record Plant and at Caribou Ranch in Colorado during 1974 and 1976. The initial 1979 LP release of ''Sleep Dirt'' was entirely instrumental. In 1982, Zappa asked singer Thana Harris to add her vocals to three songs from this album: "Flambay", "Spider of Destiny", and "Time is Money". Harris sings the part o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zappa In New York
''Zappa in New York'' is a double live album by Frank Zappa released on his own DiscReet Records label. It was recorded in December 1976 at a series of concerts at the Palladium in New York City. The album was scheduled for release in mid 1977 but it was not generally available until March 1978. The album reached #57 on the ''Billboard'' 200 albums chart in the United States. Music The album features a variety of rock and jazz-rock tracks. ''Sofa'' and ''Big Leg Emma'' had appeared in different arrangements on previous Zappa records, while the other songs were entirely new. Backing musicians include a full horn section, containing members of the ''Saturday Night Live'' band, including Lou Marini and Tom Malone, as well as the Brecker Brothers. In addition, Don Pardo was invited by Zappa to the Palladium concerts, and he provides introductory narrations to "Punky's Whips" and "The Illinois Enema Bandit". After the December 1976 live performances Zappa spent time in the studio in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motorhead Sherwood
Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood (May 8, 1942 – December 25, 2011) was an American rock musician notable for playing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. He appeared on all the albums of the original Mothers line-up and the 'posthumous' releases '' Burnt Weeny Sandwich'' and ''Weasels Ripped My Flesh'', as well as certain subsequent Zappa albums. He also appeared in the films '' 200 Motels'', ''Video from Hell'' and ''Uncle Meat''. Biography Sherwood was born in Arkansas City, Kansas. He and Zappa met in high school in 1956. Sherwood was in a class with Zappa's brother Bobby, who introduced the two after learning that Sherwood was a collector of blues records. Sherwood sat in with Zappa's first band, R&B group The Black-Outs, at various performances, where he was often a highlight. Sherwood and Zappa subsequently played together in the Ontario, California rock'n'roll/ R&B group The Omens. Sherwood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Tripp
Arthur Dyer Tripp III (born September 10, 1944) is an American retired musician who is best known for his work as a percussionist with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band during the 1960s and 1970s. Tripp retired from music in the 1980s and works as a chiropractor in Mississippi. Early career Arthur Dyer Tripp III was born September 10, 1944, in Athens, Ohio. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He started playing drums in fourth grade with school bands, then later while at high school at weddings, fraternity parties and dances. In the mid-1950s he studied drums with noted Pittsburgh jazz and big band drummer, Al Hammond. In 1959 he became a student of Stanley Leonard, a timpanist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, with whom he learned to play other percussion instruments, including the xylophone, tympani, marimba, and dozens of others. In 1962, Tripp enrolled at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music to study percuss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Collins (rock Musician)
Ray Collins (November 19, 1936 – December 24, 2012) was an American musician. Early life Collins grew up in Pomona, California singing in his school choir, the son of a local police officer. He quit high school to get married. Career Collins started his musical career singing falsetto backup vocals for various doo-wop groups in the Los Angeles area in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Little Julian Herrera and the Tigers. In 1963 Collins co-wrote Memories of El Monte with Frank Zappa. In 1964, Collins, drummer Jimmy Carl Black, bassist Roy Estrada, saxophonist Dave Coronado, and guitarist Ray Hunt formed The Soul Giants. Hunt was eventually replaced by Zappa, and the group evolved into the Mothers of Invention. Ray was the lead vocalist on most songs for their early albums, including ''Freak Out!'', '' Absolutely Free'', '' Cruising with Ruben & the Jets'' and ''Uncle Meat''. He additionally provided harmonica on ''Freak Out!''. In 1968 Ray quit The Mothers of Inventi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Preston
Donald Ward Preston (born September 21, 1932) is an American jazz and rock keyboardist. He is known for working with Frank Zappa from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. Biography Preston was born into a family of musicians in Detroit and began studying music at an early age. His father played saxophone and trumpet, and had been offered the lead trumpet chair in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Upon moving the family to Detroit, Don's father became the staff arranger for NBC, and was the composer-in-residence for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Don took sporadic lessons on the piano from the age of about five. In 1950 Preston began a stint in the Army, serving in Trieste, Italy and playing in the Army band (initially piano, bass drum and glockenspiel) alongside Herbie Mann. In Trieste he shared a barracks with fellow recruit Buzz Gardner, who introduced him to contemporary classical composers such as Béla Bartók, Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. Preston took up the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunk Gardner
Bunk Gardner (born John Leon Guarnera; May 2, 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American musician who most notably played for the original version of Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention until the group disbanded in 1969. He plays woodwinds and tenor sax. Career Gardner started playing music at the age of seven by taking piano lessons. When he was a teenager he started playing the tenor sax. In 1959 he played with Bud Wattles & his Orchestra's album ''Themes from the Hip''. Later he played with Joanna & the Playboys in 1962. By late 1966 Gardner had joined Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, playing tenor sax and other woodwinds. The Mothers found success, with '' Absolutely Free'' and ''We're Only in It for the Money'' entering the charts. In late 1968 his brother Buzz Gardner joined the Mothers, staying until the group disbanded a year later. Gardner played with Menage A Trois with Buzz and John Balkin. Later he recorded with Geronimo Black and the Grandmothers. In 1980 Gardner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lumpy Money
''The Lumpy Money Project/Object'' is a compilation album by Frank Zappa. Released posthumously on January 23, 2009 as Official Release #85, it compiles the releases ''Lumpy Gravy'' and ''We're Only in It for the Money'' with previously unreleased material, with the overall package serving as an audio documentary of the production of the two albums, which share conceptual continuity themes. It is project/object #2 in a series of 40th Anniversary FZ Audio Documentaries, following '' MOFO'' (2006). Content The first disc consists of the 1967 version of ''Lumpy Gravy'', intended for release by Capitol Records (actually a few 4-track cartridge copies of the Capitol version were distributed to wholesalers and radio stations before MGM Records, Zappa's label at the time, forced Capitol to halt distribution of their version of the album), and the 1968 mono mix of ''We're Only in It for the Money''. The second disc consists of two remixes prepared by Zappa in 1984, with overdubs by d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lumpy Gravy
''Lumpy Gravy'' is the debut solo album by Frank Zappa, written by Zappa and performed by a group of session players he dubbed the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra. Zappa conducted the orchestra but did not perform on the album. It is his third album overall: his previous releases had been under the name of his group, the Mothers of Invention. It was commissioned and briefly released, on August 7, 1967, by Capitol Records in the 4-track Stereo-Pak format only and then withdrawn due to a lawsuit from MGM Records. MGM claimed that the album violated Zappa's contract with their subsidiary, Verve Records. In 1968 it was reedited and released by MGM's Verve Records on May 13, 1968. The final version of the album consisted of two musique concrète pieces that combined elements from the original orchestral performance with elements of surf music and the spoken word. It was praised for its music and editing. Produced simultaneously with ''We're Only in It for the Money'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Carl Black
James Carl Inkanish, Jr. (February 1, 1938 – November 1, 2008), known professionally as Jimmy Carl Black, was a drummer and vocalist for The Mothers of Invention. Background and early career: 1960s–1990s Born in El Paso, Texas, Black was of Southern Cheyenne descent through his father. His trademark line was "Hi Boys and Girls, I'm Jimmy Carl Black, and I'm the Indian of the group." The line can be heard several times on The Mothers of Invention's album ''We're Only in It for the Money'' (for example, on the tracks " Are You Hung Up?" and "Concentration Moon"). The line can also be heard in Haskell Wexler's 1969 movie ''Medium Cool'', which uses several songs by Zappa and the Mothers. Black was also addressed as such by Theodore Bikel in the film '' 200 Motels''. He has been credited on some Mothers albums as playing "drums, vocals, and poverty". Black appeared in the movie directed by Frank Zappa, '' 200 Motels'', and sings the song "Lonesome Cowboy Burt". Black also made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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