Frank Zappa: Halloween
A few years back, it was possible via the Zappa.com website to send an email to the Vaultmeister Joe Travers asking about upcoming releases. One such email sent by me enquired about the possibility of L. Shankar being featured on any future albums. A reply came back informing me that my world would be “rocked” very shortly. Well…almost. For those in the know of course, Zappa and Halloween at the New York Palladium became a legendary pairing like Floyd in Pompeii, or Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard. It was his place, and for a few nights every year leading up to Halloween night, Frank and his”rocking teenage combo” (which at this time featured Vinnie Colaiuta, Arthur Barrow, Tommy Mars, Peter Wolf, Ed Mann, Denny Walley and bonus Bass guitar guest Patrick O’Hearn) put on shows of epic proportions. None more so than Halloween 1978: 6 shows in total culminating in a truly momentous 4 hour extravaganza on the 31st, with the aforementioned L (Larry as Frank called him) Shankar, fresh out of Shakti, on hand to provide what can only be described as a dueling partner for Frank throughout the show. These solo battles took place in Pound For a Brown, Little House I Used to Live In, Watermelon in Eater Hay, Packard Goose and Black Napkins and were one of the reasons that the concert nearly hit the 4 hour mark, the other being the sheer variety of material being played from throughout Frank’s career. As he says at the start of this DVD-A: “we’re going to play a very long show, I hope you people arn’t in a hurry to get home…”. He then lets us know that after playing the normal part of the show we’ll be treated to a “whole collection of stuff that we don’t normally do”.
So far so good, and with this being DVD-A the possibilities for cramming an ungodly amount of prime Zappa into one disc seemed exciting. Things start of well with the opening guitar solo Ancient Armaments wonderful setting up the hysteria of the event. But, tragically what follows becomes merely a Zappa greatest hits show. The “whole collection of stuff” that they don’t normally do gets moved to one side to make way for Yellow Snow, Stinkfoot and…wait for it….Dinah-Moe Humm!! To be fair, this album’s version of Easy Meat kicks supreme arse with a great guitar solo, some hilarious seal noises from Vinnie and a lovely swagger throughout. There’s also some hot guitar in Stinkfoot and a nice moment of crowd interaction as Frank spots someone that he recognises from the Garrick theatre days, which makes up for this song seeing it’s 5th official release at this stage. But by the time that the Dinah-Brillo-Muffin Man encore kicks in, you can’t help but feel that a great opportunity to present one of Frank’s greatest concerts has slipped away.
That is until the final track quietly starts up: a softly rendered version of Black Napkins that slowly disintegrates into discordantly scattered guitar phrases over Vinnie’s typically splintered drumming, before the most miraculous transformation occurs. Out of nowhere Zappa starts poking away at the melody to the Deathless Horsie and the band, rather than simply dropping straight into the correct chord sequence, instead modulate and pull around the harmony benind the guitar before finally easing into the tonic key as the groove gets re-established. At which point, out pops Shankar for a some more of what had been taking place all night at the Palladium but sadly not on this album. Shankar ghosts Zappa’s solo beautifully, before a cue form the boss sends everyone back to Black Napkins to finish things off.
It must be something to do with the ZFT’s deal with DTS that warranted such a “hits” intensive release, and the Napkins/Horsie combo clearly comes across as the bait to get the hardcore fans on board. And of course, don’t forget the fact that it was a 5:1 release which was quite ahead of the game for 2003. And Vinnie’s drums do sound edible!! But you can’t help hoping that more is to come from these particular shows…
No Comments Yet