'King Kong' is probably the most important cornerstone in Jean-Luc’s
career, in that it’s both the turning point that gave him a visibility
that his previous work in mainstream Jazz would have never made
possible, and the opportunity to escape the growing pressure from "the suits" at his
record label who wanted to push him into commercial music.
The result was this mind-blowing and unique album in Jean-Luc’s career, deeply Zappa-esque in its aesthetics, fed by the unconditional support of a line-up of musicians experienced in diversified areas, but whose guiding lights are Jean-Luc’s virtuoso playing and a progressive vision of music no one had ever tried to adapt to the violin.
Personnel:
Jean-Luc Ponty – electric violin, baritone violectra
Frank Zappa – guitar
George Duke – piano, electric piano
Ernie Watts – alto and tenor sax
Ian Underwood – tenor sax
Buell Neidlinger – bass
Wilton Felder – Fender bass
Gene Estes – vibraphone, percussion
John Guerin – drums
Art Tripp – drums
Donald Christlieb – bassoon
Gene Cipriano – oboe, English horn
Vincent DeRosa – French horn, descant
Arthur Maebe – French horn, tuben
Jonathan Meyer – flute
Harold Bemko – cello
Milton Thomas – viola
For the freeload, post your favorite Frank Zappa quote (not lyrics).
A favorite quote is tough because they're so cynical and nihilistic, lacking the humour of his music. Like a very bitter Groucho Marx. I did like the documentary though. Maybe this one if I assume he's being ironic: “If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they'll murder you in your sleep.”
ReplyDelete"Thank God the yuppies didn't reproduce. Did you ever consider that LSD was really one of the most dangerous drugs ever manufactured because the people who took it turned into yuppies?....The yuppie lived in a special type of aquarium created him by the Reagan administration."
ReplyDeletefrom the book The Return of the Portable Curmudgeon
The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows.
ReplyDelete“A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole.”
ReplyDelete― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book
Most people wouldn't know music if it came up & bit them in the ass.
ReplyDeletebonus 1 - If you wanna get laid, go to college, if you want an education, go to the library.
bonus 2 - A mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open.
Bonus 3 - (Magnet on my refrigerator) - Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. Thanks Babs
Hydrogen is not the most common element in the universe, stupidity is.
ReplyDeleteCan I mention the spoken parts of "Plastic People"? Although, knowing FZ's continuity theories, they probably qualify as lyrics.
ReplyDeleteDefinition of rock journalism: People who can’t write, doing interviews with people who can’t think, in order to prepare articles for people who can’t read.
ReplyDeleteLink
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/b3LqaPygxbk
”In the United States especially, musicians are generally regarded as sort of useless adjuncts to society, unless they do something creative, like write a Coca-Cola jingle, and then they’ll be accepted. But musicians usually are regarded as sort of the scum of the earth, and so if you want to be a musician, you just have to realize before you start that nobody is really going to care.”
ReplyDeleteI was lucky to hear this album my freshman year of college, and I've loved it ever since.
D in California
I'm no aficionado of the teachings of Frank Zappa but I quite like these for their novelty value amonhgst the more straightforward social comment (but what did France do to him?)
ReplyDelete"There is no hell. There is only France"
&
"Beware of the fish people, they are the true enemy."
"Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform and don't kid yourself."
ReplyDeleteJazz isn't dead, it just smells funny.
ReplyDelete