Showing posts with label Frank Zappa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Zappa. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2020
King Crimson to Tour North America with The Zappa Band Summer 2020
King Crimson will be playing one tour this year in USA and Canada during June and July 2020. Except for shows such as the Ottawa Blues Festival, all the dates will be double bills with the Zappa Band.
“The Summer tour will be a throwback one for us in a few ways; great to be going back to outdoor venues, some of them the ‘sheds’ we played in the 1980’s. And we’ll be travelling by tour bus, old school! As for what pieces we’ll play, that hasn’t been decided yet, but will likely be a wide selection from the 50 years of Crimson repertoire. With 7 players on stage we can cover it all.” - Tony Levin
Since King Crimson's return to live performance in 2014, with critically acclaimed sell-out shows all over the world their three-hour shows regularly include material from twelve of their thirteen studio albums, including many of the songs from their seminal 1969 album In The Court of the Crimson King, described by Pete Townshend, as an “uncanny masterpiece”. The new 7-piece line-up plays many historic pieces which Crimson have never played live, as well as new arrangements of Crimson classics – “the music is new whenever it was written”. There are also new instrumentals and songs, as well as the compositions by the three drummers, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison and Jeremy Stacey, which are a regular highlight. A unique show, where seven of the best musicians in the world play music without distraction or adornment.
King Crimson is:
Robert Fripp
Tony Levin
Jakko Jakszyk
Mel Collins
Jeremy Stacey
Gavin Harrison
Pat Mastelotto
Tour dates:
June 4 - Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall
June 5 - St. Augustine, FL - St Augustine Amphitheatre
June 6 - Miami, FL - Mizner Park Amphitheatre
June 8 - Orlando, FL - Dr. Phillips Walt Disney
June 9 - New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre
June 10 - Memphis, TN - Graceland Soundstage
June 12 - Cary, NC - Koka Booth Amphitheatre
June 13 - Portsmouth, VA - Union Bank Pavilion
June 14 - Philadelphia, PA - The Mann Center
June 16 - Glens Falls, NY - Cool Insuring Arena
June 18 - Boston, MA - Rockland Trust Pavilion
June 19 - New York, NY - Forest Hills Stadium
June 20 - New Haven, CT - Westville Music Bowl
June 22 - New Brunswick, NJ - State Theatre
June 24 - Huber Heights, OH - Rose Music Center @ The Heights
June 25 - Louisville, KY - Palace Theatre
June 26 - Detroit, MI - Meadowbrook Amp
June 28 - Baltimore, MD - MECU Pavillion
June 30 - Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap
July 1 - Lewiston, NY - Artpark
July 5 - Chicago, IL - Ravinia
July 7 - Montreal, QC - Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier - Palace des Arts
July 9 - Quebec City, QC - Festival d'ete
July 11 - Ottawa, ON - Bluesfest
July 12 - Rama, ON - Casino Rama
For more information: www.dgmlive.com
painting by Francesca Sundsten
“The Zappa Band” is composed primarily of former ZAPPA alumni. The touring unit is: Ray White (lead vocals, guitar), Mike Keneally (guitar, keys, vocals), Scott Thunes (bassist) and Robert Martin (keyboards, sax, vocals). Also joining are ZPZ alums Jamie Kime (guitar) and ZAPPA archivist Joe “Vaultmeister” Travers (drums, vocals). The band will be performing a strong mix of Zappa classics along with new and rare Zappa compositions. This is the ultimate Zappa alumni band in partnership the Zappa Trust. Don't miss your chance to see these virtuosos perform live!
King Crimson Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158 (USA), glassonyonpr@gmail.com
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
New PledgeMusic Campaign For "200 Motels" by Frank Zappa & Tony Palmer Box Set - CD & DVD with Extras & Exclusives!
London - “200 Motels” is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film co-written and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr.
Gonzo Mulitimedia is releasing a limited edition box set of “200 Motels” - CD & DVD with Extras & Exclusives! The film DVD is mastered from Tony Palmer's original 2-inch masters. This is for the first time these masters have ever being used. The second disc contains extra concert material specially edited by “200 Motels” original director Tony Palmer.
In “200 Motels”, the film attempts to portray the craziness of life on the road as a rock musician. 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 a cartoon 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 the group, as did his real-life counterpart Jeff Simmons, who was fired for insubordination before the film began shooting. Simmons was replaced by Martin Lickert (who was Ringo's chauffeur) for the film.
The Orchestra was the Royal Philharmonic, including the great classical guitarist John Williams, and was conducted by Elgar Howarth who went on to become one of Britain's most distinguished conductors. And the choreography was devised by Gillian Lynne, who went on to 'invent' the Lloyd-Webber musical “Cats”. She always said that “200 Motels” was the inspiration for much that she later incorporated into “Cats”.
It was also the first film ever to be shot on 2-inch analogue videotape and successfully transferred to celluloid. “Star Wars” was only just around the corner.
The Cast
Frank Zappa as himself
The Mothers of Invention as themselves
Theodore Bikel as Rance Muhammitz, the narrator/Master of Ceremonies
Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf, dressed as Frank Zappa
Keith Moon as the hot nun
Howard Kaylan as himself
Mark Volman as himself
Ian Underwood as himself
Ruth Underwood as herself
Don Preston as himself
Jimmy Carl Black as Lonesome Cowboy Burt
Euclid James 'Motorhead' Sherwood as himself,
Aynsley Dunbar as himself
George Duke as himself
Jim Pons as himself (uncredited)
Pamela Des Barres as the interviewer
Martin Lickert as “Jeff”
Janet Neville-Ferguson as Groupie #1
Lucy Offerall as Groupie #2
Dick Barber as Chunga – The Vacuum Cleaner
Judy Gridley as the chorus leader
For more information: www.pledgemusic.com/frankzappaandtonypalmer
Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158 (US), glassonyonpr@gmail.com
Friday, November 17, 2017
The Ed Palermo Big Band Releases The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren, a Dizzying and Ingenious Reinvention of Music by Frank Zappa and Todd Rundgren!
Featuring Zappa Vocal Legend Napoleon Murphy Brock!
Ed Palermo may have gained an international following with his ingenious orchestral arrangements of Frank Zappa tunes, but he’s hardly a one-trick pony. Earlier in the year, the saxophonist released an uproarious double album The Great Un-American Songbook Volumes 1 & 2, a project celebrating an expansive roster of songs by successive waves of British invaders, from the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Jeff Beck to King Crimson, Traffic, and Jethro Tull.
With his new big band project, slated for release on Cuneiform Records on October 6, 2017, Palermo is back on his home turf, but the landscape feels strange and uncanny. He’s reclaiming the Zappa songbook, filtering Frank through the emotionally charged lens of the polymathic musical wizard Todd Rundgren in a wild and wooly transmogrification, The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren. Working with the same stellar cast of players, Palermo somehow captures the essence of these iconoclastic masters, making Zappa Zappier and Todd more Rundgrenian.
He sees the Zappa and Rundgren as embodying a ying and yang approach to life that played an essential role in helping him navigate the minefields of teenage angst in the 1960s. “For most of my high school days my favorite musicians were Zappa and Todd Rundgren,” Palermo says. “Rundgren had his songs about self-pity, which were exactly what I needed back then. I’d go out with a girl and whatever party I brought her to she’d go and hang out with another dude. Todd understood. At the same time, Zappa had these snarky songs like ‘Broken Hearts are for Assholes.’ It was tough love. You gotta broken heart? Deal with it. Todd Rundgren’s music was there to give you a hug. I wanted to contrast the hard-bitten Zappa followed by a bleeding heart Rundgren ballad.”
Though the title suggests a forced merger, The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren doesn’t mashup the oeuvres of the two masters. Rather, the album mostly alternates between the composers, creating a deliciously dizzying whipsaw as the two diametrical stances sometimes blur or even switch. Zappa’s soaring fanfare “Peaches En Regalia” is more inspirational than smarmy, with a particularly eloquent alto sax solo by Cliff Lyons, while a brisk and forthright version of Rundgren’s “Influenza” showcases the muscular lyricism of violinist Katie Jacoby, one of the orchestra’s essential voices.
Palermo reaches deep into the Rundgren songbook for “Kiddie Boy,” a stinging blues from 1969’s Nazz Nazz, the seminal second release by his underappreciated band Nazz (an album which originally bore the Zappaesque title Fungo Bat). Drawing directly from the maestro’s original horn arrangement, Palermo displays some impressive guitar work on a vehicle for Bruce McDaniel’s blue-eye vocals. Napoleon Murphy Brock delivers a poker-faced rendition of Zappa’s surreal “Montana,” the tune that turned a generation on to the lucrative potential of floss farming, and McDaniel and Brock join forces on Rundgren’s deliriously silly “Emperor of the Highway,” an homage to Gilbert and Sullivan.
The contrasting sensibilities of the Zundgrens comes into sharp focus in the center of the album. While Palermo has recorded Zappa’s “Echidna’s Arf (Of You)” this time he replaces the horns with McDaniel’s intricately layered vocals via the miracle of multi-tracking. From Zappa’s playfully odd metered work out the big band saunters into Rundgren’s greatest ballad “Hello It's Me,” an arrangement for McDaniel’s most impassioned crooning based on the original version from 1968 album Nazz (not the hit from his solo Something/Anything? album).
Tenor saxophonist Bill Straub swaggers through Rundgren’s “Wailing Wall,” which is sandwiched between two slices of Zappa at his snarky best, “Big Swifty Coda” and “Florentine Pogen,” another superb feature for Brock. Palermo spotlights a dark and wondrous Zappa obscurity with “Janet's Big Dance Number,” a brief piece recovered from 200 Motels featuring Ben Kono’s noir tenor solo. From that unified hedgehogian arrangement Palermo unleashes the multifarious fox on Rundgren’s “Broke Down and Busted,” a portmanteau arrangement that touches on Rundgren’s “Boat on the Charles,” the Ramsey Lewis hit “The ‘In’ Crowd,” Zappa’s “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It,” and even traces of Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic.” It’s a tour de force that feels like stream of consciousness journey, though the id truly emerged on the closing hidden track. In what has become a Palermo tradition, he includes yet another version of an enduring lament about the difficulties of relationships, arranged this time in Nazzian style by McDaniel.
The seamless ease with which Palermo and his crack crew navigate between the Zappa and Rundgren shouldn’t come as a surprise. Over the years Zappa’s music has proven supremely pliable in Palermo’s capable hands, as evidenced further by a recent concert at Iridium that paired his songs with standards indelibly linked to Ol’ Blue Eyes (is there an album The Adventures of Zinatra in the future?). Everything he brings into the big band is a labor of love.
“Todd Rundgren holds a very special place in my heart,” Palermo says. “I realized I was in love with my girlfriend (now wife) listening to his album Something/Anything? It was about 2 years ago doing our regular hit at The Falcon that I decided to have Zodd Zundgren night. A lot of people who like the music of Zappa also like Rundgren and Steely Dan, but there are enough Steely Dan cover bands out there.”
Born in Ocean City, New Jersey on June 14, 1954, Palermo grew up in the cultural orbit of Philadelphia, which was about an hour drive away. He started playing clarinet in elementary school, and soon turned to the alto saxophone. He also took up the guitar, and credits his teenage obsession with Zappa to opening his ears to post-bop harmonies and improvisation.
Palermo caught the jazz bug while attending DePaul University, and took to the alto sax with renewed diligence inspired by Phil Woods, Cannonball Adderley, and Edgar Winter (the subject of an upcoming EPBB project). Before he graduated he was leading his own band and making a good living as a studio player recording commercial jingles. But like so many jazz musicians he answered New York’s siren call, moving to Manhattan in 1977. After a year of playing jam sessions and scuffling Palermo landed a coveted gig with Tito Puente, a four-year stint that immersed him in Afro-Cuban music.
An encounter with trumpeter Woody Shaw’s septet at the Village Vanguard in the late 1970s stoked his interest in writing and arranging for larger ensembles, and by the end of the decade he had launched a nine-piece rehearsal band with five horns. Between Don Sebesky’s well-regarded book The Contemporary Arranger and advice from Dave Lalama and Tim Ouimette, “I got a lot of my questions answered and I’ll love them forever,” Palermo says. “Then the real education was trial and error. I lived in a little apartment with no TV or furniture. All I had was a card table, and once a week I’d rehearse my nonet, then listen to the cassette of the rehearsal and make all the changes.”
Palermo made his recording debut in 1982, an impressive session featuring heavyweights such as David Sanborn, Edgar Winter and Randy Brecker. As a consummate studio cat and sideman, he toured and recorded with an array of stars, including Aretha Franklin, Eddie Palmieri, Celia Cruz, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé, Lou Rawls, Melba Moore, The Spinners, and many others. As an arranger, he’s written charts for the Tonight Show Band, Maurice Hines, Eddy Fischer, and Melissa Walker. Employed frequently by bass star Christian McBride for a disparate array of projects, Palermo has written arrangements for a James Brown concert at the Hollywood Bowl, a Frank Sinatra tribute featuring Kurt Elling, Seth McFarland, and John Pizzarelli, and a 20-minute medley of Wayne Shorter tunes for the New Jersey Ballet.
Palermo had been leading his big band for more than a decade before the Zappa concept started coming together. Inspired by electric guitar master Mike Keneally, who performed with Zappa on some of his final concerts before his death in 1993, Palermo decided to arrange a program of 12 Zappa tunes. When the time came to debut the material at one of the band’s regular gigs at the Bitter End in early 1994, a sold-out crowd greeted the band.
He earned international attention with the ensemble’s 1997 debut The Ed Palermo Big Band Plays Frank Zappa on Astor Place Records, which received a highly-prized 4-star review from DownBeat. With Palermo’s brilliant arrangements and soloists such as Bob Mintzer, Chris Potter, Dave Samuels, Mike Stern, and Mike Keneally, the album made an undisputable case for the Zappa jazz concept. In 2006 he released another collection of Zappa arranged for his jazz big band, called Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, on Cuneiform, thus beginning an ongoing collaboration with that label. While Palermo has written more than 300 Zappa charts, he’s cast an increasingly wide net for material. Recent releases like 2014’s Oh No! Not Jazz!!, 2016’s One Child Left Behind and 2017’s The Great Un-American Songbook Volumes 1 & 2 - all on Cuneiform and all recipients of DownBeat’s coveted 4-star ratings - featured a bountiful selection of his original compositions and material by composers not named Frank Zappa.
Nothing demonstrates the ensemble’s ongoing vitality better than the stellar cast of players, with longtime collaborators such as violinist Katie Jacoby, baritone saxophonist Barbara Cifelli, drummer Ray Marchica, and keyboardist Ted Kooshian. Many of these top-shelf musicians have been in the band for more than a decade, and they bring wide-ranging experience, expert musicianship and emotional intensity to Palermo’s music.
The band’s following continues to expand with its monthly residency at Iridium and bi-monthly gigs at The Falcon. In addition, performances (some headlining) at jazz festivals across the USA are winning new fans of all ages for the band. Palermo’s profile in the jazz press is also rising fast, with articles and feature stories appearing this past year in such publications as Jazz Times and Jazziz. Regarding recordings, albums by The Ed Palermo Big Band have been critically acclaimed and also embraced by the general public-jazz and rock fans alike. Palermo has already recorded dozens of new tracks for The Great Un-American Songbook Volumes 3 & 4, and is hoping Zodd Zundgren helps introduce Rundgren’s ingenious, heartfelt music to a new generation.
To purchase Ed Palermo's The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren:
http://a.co/30Oggdq
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-adventures-of-zodd-zundgren/id1281745553
https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-adventures-of-zodd-zundgren
http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Products/Palermo-Ed-The-Adventures-Of-Zodd-Zundgren__Rune-spc-440.aspx
For more information on The Ed Palermo Big Band
http://www.palermobigband.com- http://www.facebook.com/palermobigband - Twitter: @palermobigband
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com - Twitter: @cuneiformrecord
Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158, glassonyonpr@gmail.com
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Music Legend Frank Zappa's Brother Bob Zappa To Release Second Book “Frankie & Bobby: The Rest of Our Story”
NYC - Following his critically acclaimed book “Frankie & Bobby: Growing Up Zappa,” music legend Frank Zappa's younger brother Charles Robert “Bob” Zappa is releasing a second book titled “Frankie & Bobby: The Rest of Our Story.”
Bob's first book, “Frankie & Bobby: Growing Up Zappa,” is poignant and insightful perspective on the life of one of the twentieth century's most provocative and intriguing musicians. This “coming of age” memoir provided readers with never before told stories about events that helped shape Frank's political, social, intellectual and creative development. The book begins with the brother's time in Maryland from the late 1940's until the summer of 1967 in New York City before Frank and the Mothers went on their first of many European tours. This fascinating account describes how the two brothers lived through, and handled, a series of events ranging from amusing to life threatening. It is a must-read for anybody interested in Frank's amazing life that only his closest confidant and brother, Bobby, can tell.
Bob's new book “Frankie & Bobby: The Rest of Our Story” picks up where the first volume leaves off... Says Bob, “For those of you who read my first book, 'Frankie & Bobby: Growing Up Zappa', thank you. I hope you enjoyed it and found that the information about Frank added to your understanding his complex and brilliant mind and his early development. This book tells the next chapter in our story. It's about how my brother and I continued on our separate but intertwined paths after his successful long running show, 'Absolutely Free' (sic), at the Garrick Theater in New York in the summer of 1967.
“When I decided to write the sequel to 'Frankie and Bobby: Growing Up Zappa,' I wanted to provide readers with more personal stories that would fill in gaps on how our lives intersected over the last decades of Frank's life. I also wanted to describe more about life in America during the Vietnam era and up to the present day to help set the stage for events that fans have wondered about for a long time. This time I added more about my own life's journey. I wanted to depict how Frank and I maintained our relationship because to me he was a 'regular guy,' except for his extraordinary life in the public eye. He was my older brother and best friend regardless of his talents, celebrity or public image. I think fans will find this aspect interesting and should help add a more human dimension to his image.
“There are also the episodes about Frank's own family - especially his wife, Gail - that try to explain their curious relationship and how she interacted with me and her own children. Of interest are how our mother, sister, and brother, and especially me, were kept from Frank's and his children's lives. The reasons for that are still unclear to my niece Moon and nephew, Dweezil.
“But I do end on a positive note by describing my reunion with Moon and Dweezil following Gail's death, after more than four decades of estrangement. 'Frankie and Bobby: The Rest of Our Story' provides new material that will help Frank's fans add some much needed pieces to the puzzle that is Frank Zappa.”
While there have been several books and documentaries about Frank Zappa, most have forgotten to mention that Frank often referred to himself as “a regular guy.” And that is one of the “driving forces” behind Bob's new book.
Says Co de Kloet, well-known radio personality and music producer in Amsterdam, “By sharing personal, sometimes extremely personal stories about his relationship with Frank, Bob gives us a clear view of that 'regular-guyness' quality, leaving the importance and impact of his brother intact. By not just focusing on Frank and giving us information about other relations and some of his own experiences, he puts Frank in a new and sincere perspective. I had a great time reading it and I hope it will do well. Over the years I had a friendship with Herbie Cohen, Frank's manager and business partner. He was at my farmhouse a few times and once when he was reading something in a book about Zappa, he smiled and said, 'It is always fun to read what people THINK really happened (in Frank's life) but they haven't got a clue.' Bob Zappa has! And that is what makes this book a must have.”
The book is also one of rejection, reconciliation and closure... As James Cohen: Zappanale Master of Ceremonies explains, “A memoir is more than recollection, it exposes a continuum of related events: Bob Zappa's 'Frankie & Bobby - The Rest of Our Story' is wisdom gained over time. Picking up where his first book left off, it focuses on Bob's adventures in the US and elsewhere - a Swedish university course in Deviant Behavior or a close brush with Soviet espionage. Bob's ultimate purpose of understanding how his alienation from his brother Frank's world developed, or was created, overshadows these episodes. Climaxing with a series of rejections relating to the passing of their mother Rose Marie and finally of Frank himself, Bob celebrates his subsequent reconciliation with Dweezil and Moon and a new life rooted deep in his past…A great read, and for the Zappa faithful, optimistic closure.”
Distinguished Teaching Professor Joseph Klein, Dmus concludes, “Perhaps most poignant are the episodes relating to Frank's own family- in particular his wife, Gail…during the final years of Frank's life…and (sheds) light on a matter that has baffled and frustrated the Zappa fan community for decades…'Frankie and Bobby: The Rest of Our Story' is essential reading for any Zappologist curious for answers regarding some of the more enigmatic aspects of Frank's life.”
Bob Zappa's “Frankie & Bobby: The Rest of Our Story” is a must-read for all fans of Frank Zappa!
To purchase “Frankie & Bobby: The Rest of Our Story”:
https://www.createspace.com/6991665 (United States)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1544258798 (United States)
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/1544258798 (Canada - Book not currently available in Canada)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1544258798 (United Kingdom)
http://www.amazon.de/dp/1544258798 (Germany)
http://www.amazon.es/dp/1544258798 (Spain)
http://www.amazon.fr/dp/1544258798 (France)
http://www.amazon.it/dp/1544258798 (Italy)
To purchase “Frankie & Bobby: Growing Up Zappa”:
https://www.amazon.com/Frankie-Bobby-Growing-Up-Zappa/dp/099647790X
Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158, glassonyonpr@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)