CDOTD 4/30/2023

 Frank Zappa: Orchestral Favorites 40th Anniversary (Zappa)

I think I bought this at The Exchange

Orchestral Favorites was an album I bought in high school, which I later sold in a record dump, only to buy back a vinyl copy years afterwards. It was a cutout on original purchase, with almost no information on the cover besides work titles. I guess it was one of several albums dumped onto the market by Discreet Records, along with Sleep Dirt  and Studio Tan, though I might be getting my face mixed up. I forget all the facts, but I think Barry Miles's Zappa covers it thoroughly. I read somewhere that Frank referred to those releases as "bootlegs."

(Side note: it was also the first I remember seeing Gary Panter's work. I'd become more familiar with him when I started collecting Ralph Records, starting with the Ralph catalog #7 from 1981.)

If you're looking for a certain type of Zappa release, you're going to find this to be frustrating. No vocals, only one guitar feature, and some of the music is decidedly atonal and (for lack of a better term) abstract. The mix is sometimes odd, the bass and drums up front at times, the guitar on "Duke of Prunes" sounding like it's across the room on the melody. 

I listened to it in my teens, liked some of it, wasn't sold on other works. I knew "Duke of Prunes" from the original on Absolutely Free. I enjoyed the schmaltzy "Strictly Genteel" but hadn't heard the original 200 Motels version. I also liked the compact "Naval Aviation in Art?", a concise miniature work. The other pieces, I wasn't always so sure. Even now, while they maybe make more sense to me, still sound like ballet music waiting for choreography.

I'm trying to be careful about buying posthumous Zappa releases. The first ones released have been among the worst, definitely not adding to the existing catalog. Even some of the more recent issues, while better, haven't been essential. 

This one is better than most. Yes there's the reissue of the original LP (plus one bonus track), plus two discs of a live performance from the same ensemble and time. It's not all great (Frank mentioned being underrehearsed in the live show) but it's an interesting document of a particularly ambitious project.

Frank was a workaholic's workaholic. There's so much work, and so many things the general public hasn't heard. There's a lot of untangle with his legacy. I don't want the myth of Frank Zappa, the "outspoken modern genius," to get in the way of reasonable criticism of his work. I find many of his songs, themes, and lyrics after a certain time to be quite ugly. I mostly loathe Joe's Garage, for a variety of reasons. 

Which is partly my way of saying, I need to get back to my real work, get more music written and recorded.