Mothers / Rezapped
By ?
L.A. – The lately lamented (too late, some say), under the direction of clean-cut Francis Vincent Zappa are reforming, in whole or in part, to do a series of concerts with Zubin Mehta’s Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. It‘ll be the third in a series of four concerts billed as “Contempo ‘70”, all of which will feature the L.A. Philharmonic.
The concert will take place May 15 in UCLA’s 11,000 capacity Pauley Pavilion. Featured selections will include the Orchestra doing Mel Powell’s “Immobiles 1-4” and Varese‘s “Integrales”, the Mothers of Invention alone performing “Integrales” as interpreted by Zappa and one additional piece and as the finale, the Mothers with the Orchestra doing selections from Zappa’s two hour orchestral ballet “200 Motels”. “200 Motels” will be performed by Zappa in several places this summer at the request of the Dutch government.
As a prelude to the concerts the Mothers will be potting on three East Coast performances, for Bill Graham at the Fillmore East on May 8th and 9th and on Mother’s Day in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia. But, the bizarre genius‘s associates advise, this in no way implies that there is any permanence to the reformation of the MOl nor does it mean that Zappa feels the public is now ready for the group (the primary reason they disbanded in the first place). The film “Uncle Meat”, a mothers-oriented, pop documentary is presently being edited to final form with hopes of showing it sometime late this summer. It will be full-lenght, in cinemascope, and should feature footage of the early sixties in L.A. when bizarre was just becoming fashionable.
Zappa is also performing on the West Coast with an occasional group called Hot Rats which includes, besides guitarist Zappa. Max Bennett on bass, Ian Underwood on reeds and, Sugarcane Harris on violin and organ (Harris was formerly Don of Don and Dewey; and has been appearing on a number of records of late, including Johnny Otis’ new one, as well as producing his own récord). The drummer is British but must remain unnamed for the present because of immigration hassles. The Hot Rats group plans a second Warners/ Bizarre album shortly.