Frank Zappa: The Hot Rats Sessions
By Andy Robson
Frank Zappa
The Hot Rats Sessions
Zappa Family Trust/UMC ZR 20032 (6-CD) ★★★★
Frank Zappa
(g, octave b, perc, v), Ian Underwood (ky, p, org, ft, et, all saxes),
Lowell George (g), Don 'Sugarcane' Harris, Jean-Luc Ponty (vn),
Max Bennett, Shuggie Otis (b), John Guerin, Paul Humphrey, Ron Selico
(d), Captain Beefheart (v), plus the voices of Annie Zannus, Cynthia
Dobson and Peter Occhiogrosso. Ree. 18 July-30 August 1969 plus
additional dates
Hi kids ... There are anthologies, re-mixes, box sets and there is Zappa World. This isn't as re-issue, it's an immersive Zappa experience: Six CDs, seven hours-plus of music, extensive notes, essays and, whoa! A board game! (Take Marlboro' break: miss a go, die a little more.
Hot Rats' iconic place in both rock and jazz hardly needs justifying, does it? Zappa's compositional skills, his coruscating guitar work which hits full bloom on this, his second solo release, and – fully illustrated here – his innovative use of the studio as a creative space, makes Hot Rats a seminal 20th century work which richly deserves this 21st century expression.
If nothing else, the multiple versions of, say, 'Peaches En Regalia', show just how hard Zappa and his associates worked: as Frank cajoles and conjures at the sound desk, we hear the repeated slow, slow takes as the band embrace all those black dots, making the possible into the impossible, as a certain Mr Fripp might say. And then there's Ian Underwood's Herculean heroics, dubbing and doubling sax and keys parts.
The majority of the tracks have not been heard in these forms. Some we may not want to the hear again the 1987 remix says more about the 1980s than it does Hot Rats. But elsewhere the primal urge of Captain Beefheart's isolated vocals or the isolated guitar overdubs remain gold dust. And of course there's always a sprinkle of quirk to lighten the mood: Dobson and Zannus elaborating on Willie the Pimp's story, the priceless promo ads, so 'heavy on your head', man, and Zappa himself recalling an Archie Shepp solo as a stream of 'pre-heated rats'. A movie for your ears, a soundtrack for your soul, an experience from another time: oh boy, how much do we need a Zappa for our times.