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FRANK ZAPPA
ABSOLUTELY FREE |
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| | Reviews: 31 |
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| Average Rating: 9.42 |
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We miss you, Frank....
by S. Turner "semi-renaissance man" Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA
Reviewed on May 4th, 2003
This album was the one where Frank and the Mothers really took off as a band. "Freak Out" was their "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off", their "Meet The Beatles"....introductory, but not exemplary. "Free" is where the Zappa gift for brutal satire becomes apparent, and it's also apparent that his band was fully involved on the spirit of the humor and music. Back in the sixties, good, smart-aleck modern humor was developing, (it had pretty much exploded full blown on the scene in 1959 and just built from there,) and started snowballing with the Kennedy administration, and by the late sixties was the standard for American humor, thanks to shows like Jack Paar and Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, Playboy After Dark, That Was The Week That Was, Laugh-In, The Smothers Brothers; sitcoms like Get Smart and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and numerous hip comedy albums. Zappa was the counterculture equivalent, the beatnik Allan Sherman. And while satire was his main modus operandi, he was just as accomplished a musician. In "Absolutely Free", you can hear snatches of "Petrouchka", "Jupiter" from "The Planets", and "The Firebird" worked into extensive jams on the "Invocation Dance of the Young Pumpkin" and "Duke of Prunes". Not only would he take on politics, but songs as well. On this album, he parodies both middle America AND the doo-wop classic "Louie, Louie" in "Plastic People", but changes the melody enough so that it's unrecognizable. In his follow up to this album, "We're Only In It For The Money", he takes on weekend hippies AND the folk/blues classic "Hey Joe" in the hilarious "Flower Punk". I saw Frank and the Mothers of Invention at least four times in concert and I think we may have actually clicked, (he probably recognized me from all the shows I had been to,) and while you might expect somebody with such a vicious satirical wit to be a bit recalcitrant and obnoxious, (( I )) found him amiable and good natured! It never fails...the people with true talent usually ARE decent people to get along with, with the mediocre folk putting on the belligerent, "tortured artist" act. This iteration of the Mothers is the best one, made up of people Zappa had probably grown up with, hung around with and who thought very much like he did, because after "Money" and its companion album "Lumpy Gravy", the personnel changed and they were never the same again. Never as biting and convivial in the wit and informality. Zappa's take on society as a whole was vicious, and he skewered expertly. The cut "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" purports to expose statuatory goings on in Congress. "America Drinks and Goes Home" takes on the nightclub scene. Lush, pretentious, movie-style romance was lanced with "The Duke Of Prunes" and McCarthyism with "Call Any Vegetable". While Frank and his buddies may take some getting used to, repeated exposure will reveal a wealth of homages, targets and inspiration from what had to be one of the counterculture's greatest gifts to the world. Older listeners may be reminded of the late Spike Jones and his band but Frank is definitely right from the center of Greenwich Village and the Haight! Frank, you'll be difficult, if not impossible, to replace, just like Henson and Orson Welles.
More "Absolutely Free" reviews:
[2005-01-06] The Best Mothers' (10)
[2003-12-24] Absolutely Indispensible (10)
[2003-11-27] An Underrated Mothers Album (10)
[2003-11-14] Comical and Extremely Cynical (10)
[2003-10-20] Gotta love your mothers (10)
[2003-09-11] good (6)
[2003-07-21] My favorite of the three early Zappa albums (10)
[2003-05-28] Zappa's sophomore outing shows his style (8)
[2003-05-04] We miss you, Frank.... (10)
[2003-04-05] Relevant as Today?s Headlines (10)
[2002-10-17] Absolutely Free-kin Good (10)
[2002-10-12] ONE OF ZAPPA'S BEST......AND WEIRDEST! (10)
[2002-09-29] Classic Zappa weirdness (10)
[2002-02-11] Absolutely Free Don't Make It (6)
[2001-12-09] sublime (10)
[2001-08-23] A Classic Album- Even 35 Years Later (10)
[2001-06-30] Brown Shoes Don't Make It (8)
[2001-03-18] Thirty-seven minutes of non-stop silliness! (10)
[2001-03-09] A classic from 1967 (10)
[2001-02-27] absolutely great (10)
[2001-02-07] The origin of many concert classics (8)
[2000-12-10] 60's and then some (10)
[2000-10-01] The vegetable WILL respond to you (10)
[2000-03-01] CHAPTER 2: A QUANTUM LEAP (10)
[1999-12-23] Exceptional (10)
[1999-12-22] One of the great works of art of the 20th century (10)
[1999-08-13] An amazing piece of work--warts and all (8)
[1999-03-24] The Mothers at their best. (10)
[1999-02-01] Frank was one of a kind. An absolute genius. (10)
[1998-07-27] A Classic!! (10)
[1998-07-25] Zappa begins to find his form in his enjoyable 2nd outing (8)
Displaying reviews from 1 to 31
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