As Spike Jones was to jazz in the 1940s, Frank Zappa was to rock and roll. Always leading the best of musicians, he mixed nostalgia with mischief and clever music in a way that attracted as wide and disparate a group of fans as was his music. This album, which was supposed to be released at the time, but for some reason wasn’t, catches the band at the famed Whiskey A Go Go in 1968, right around Lumpy Gravy, We’re Only In It For The Money and Cruising with Ruben & The Jets. The band , with Zappa on guitar, included Ray Collins/voc-perc, Ian Underwood/as, Bunk Gardner/ts-fl, Don Preston/key, Roy Estrada/v-voc, Art Tripp-Jimmy Carl Black/dr along with cameo appearances by the GTOs and Kim Fowley. Talk about a packed stage!
The three disc set runs the gamut, from doo wop tunes such as “Memories of El Monte”, “Oh, In Th Sky” and Valerie” to wild jams like the funky ‘Brown Shoes Don’t Make It”, “The Whip” and two episodes of “Whiskey Improv”. There are some adventurous fusions of jazz and rock with searing guitars and keyboards as on the eerie “Meow” and ”Presentation of Wings” and an acid rock out with drums on “Whisky Chouflee” and “Octandre”. The always fascinating part of Zappa, as with Jones, is you never know when he’s tongue in cheek, sincere, or sinister. Echoes of an era when creativity was taken for granted.