ursinator2.0
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The Audition Gallery, Act III
Scott Thunes Zoom Interview
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polydigm
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^ A very interesting interview. Boy, that man can talk. Interesting that he got an apology from Ed Mann. Also interesting to hear that he has the same
opinion as me about reading music.
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ursinator2.0
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Terry Bozzio Talks About His Career Part 2
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Plook
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That was really interesting...thanks for posting link...
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ursinator2.0
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Facebook finding
Belew was playing with a local bar band in a small club in Nashville when Zappa came in to see them:
“Frank gave me a list of difficult songs from several different records, and his instructions were, ‘Figure out how to play and sing this the best
you can, however you can.’ The music was pretty complicated for a guy who was just playing in a bar band. I had never played in odd time signatures,
and I didn’t read music, whereas the rest of the Frank’s band did. And I was so poor at the time that I didn’t even buy the records. I borrowed
them from my friends, because I didn’t know if it was going to work out anyway.
“The audition was pretty brutal, and I didn’t do very well. It was like the chaos of a movie set with people moving pianos around and so on. And
there’s little me standing in the middle of a room with a Pignose amplifier and a Stratocaster trying to sing and play lots of Frank Zappa songs. I
was so nervous. I remember doing ‘Andy,’ and ‘Wind Up Workin' In A Gas Station.’ I thought I did poorly, and I had nowhere to go. I had just
flown in, and was driven to his house, so I sat there all day watching everyone else. I watched some really tough auditions, especially for keyboard
players and percussionists. I didn’t see any other guitar players, but I was later told that he auditioned 50 guitar players.
“At the end of the day, when it all calmed down and people were finally leaving, I finally got my time to speak to Frank again. I said simply this:
‘Frank, I don’t think I did so well. I imagined this would have happened differently. I thought you and I would sit somewhere quiet, and I would
play and sing the songs for you. And he said, ‘OK, then let’s do that.’ “We went upstairs to his living room, and we sat on his purple couch.
I placed my Pignose amplifier face down on the couch so I could get a little bit of sustain, and I auditioned all over again. At the end of it, he
reached out his hand and said, ‘You got the job.’ We shook hands, and that was an absolute turning point in my life.”
-Interview in Guitar Player, November 2005
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ursinator2.0
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facebook finding
George Duke with Zappa 1970–75
The first time I met Frank was when he produced the King Kong session for [violinist] Jean-Luc Ponty. I was working with Jean-Luc at a club in L.A.
called Thee Experience, and he insisted that he didn't want to do the record unless I came along with it. He didn't know Frank at that time, so he
wanted somebody from his camp to be there. So I did the date, Frank liked me, and it went from there.
Maybe two months later, I was at my mother's house in Marin City, and one Sunday afternoon I got a call from Frank. He asked me to come down and be a
part of this show he was doing at UCLA with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, and the Mothers Of Invention. After that, Frank asked me to
join the band. I couldn't understand why he wanted me, because I was such a straight-laced jazz player. But he liked me because I was crazy. I would
do anything on the piano.
It's funny. The music we did with Jean-Luc Ponty on that record, and the stuff we did with Zubin Mehta, was advanced for the time; it's probably still
advanced for now. But when I joined the Mothers, the first stuff we did was that kind of rock and roll where you do those doo-wop triplets. I was
like, "Oh, God! I can't do this!" After that, of course, we moved right into the more advanced music.
Rehearsals were grueling, very tough. You would go into the studio at noon or one o'clock and be there until seven or eight o'clock in the morning.
The whole band would be sitting around, and I'd be there with my keyboards. When he needed me, he called me in. When he didn't need me, I'd go out and
watch television. Or Ian Underwood and I would script out who was gonna do what sound, who had the time to do this funny lick Frank wanted and then
get back around the keyboard to change the patch and make the next move. See, we're not talking about synthesizers that had presets. You had to change
each patch. And if you didn't get it, Frank would know it. He would look around at you and make you do it again. Onstage! It was almost like a
Broadway show.
He would make us go over one lick until there was no way we could forget it. It's amazing to me to go back and listen to the tapes of what we were
doing onstage. God, the amount of music you had to play the same each night! That was some of the most difficult music I've ever played, partly
because he composed a lot of it from the guitar. But once I was in the band for four years or whatever, it came to a point where he didn't have to
write anything out for me. I knew what Frank was looking for, and I could easily come up with parts I knew he would like. If he wanted something
special, he'd just say, "We need something weird here." We'd try things until we found something he liked. We used to spend hours and hours in the
studio doing that stuff.
Frank's music was like organized chaos. That's exactly what it was. Once we got to the level we were at on The Roxy and Elsewhere, there was almost
nothing we couldn't do. If he wanted to move into contemporary orchestral or classical music, we could do that. If it was back to the '50s or forward
into weird stuff, we could do that too. We were like a rubber-band band: He would do certain moves with his hands, and we absolutely knew what he
wanted.
The only thing that made me want to retreat back to the jazz world was 200 Motels. I was still really straight then. I didn't have a big sense of
humor. Even now, 200 Motels is the weirdest thing I've ever done in my life. It was so strange, I almost can't explain it. It was just very weird to
be a straight-laced, thin-black-tie-wearing cat, with all these grungy hippies, for lack of a better word. But I loved it, because I knew I had
something to learn, and these guys were incredible musicians. And Frank did bring out my sense of humor. By the time I started playing with Billy
Cobham in '76, I was crazy. I had all these crazy statues and heads around the keyboards. That was a holdover from Frank, because I felt that this
fusion music was too serious. It needed some comedy. Nobody was smiling. So Frank's attitude seriously affected me.
Frank was the hardest worker I've ever played with, hands-down. I never saw anyone work harder than he did. From the time he got up to the time he
went to bed, he was thinking music. He wasn't very personable in terms of dealing with people. On a certain level, he had a problem in dealing with
his musicians. Once you were out of his concept of making music, you were out of his life, and he didn't have time for you. But he was always great
with me. He was a teacher: If I needed to know something, he would tell me. I know he wasn't like that with some other people. For sure, out of all
the people who worked with him, I'm the one guy who never had any problem with him about nothin'. And, for the time, he paid me more money than I
could have gotten anywhere else.
The only change I saw in Frank over those years was that he went from being funny/sarcastic to being almost serious/sarcastic. Toward the latter part
of the time I was in the band, his sense of humor became kind of vindictive.
I last saw Frank about a year ago. He kept trying to get me to come up and do some stuff with him at his house, but I was involved with doing a lot of
records. I had my own career going. I didn't really have time to be a part of Frank's world at that point. I kept planning to go up and see him, but I
just never did. It's a drag.
[img]https://scontent-fra3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/375201691_1088488622582941_1281400220152811813_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=4c1e7
d&_nc_ohc=wORry2AkA0UAX8vw1MG&_nc_ht=scontent-fra3-2.xx&oh=00_AfAr1iEOO8kVYTwiaWQ53ICnN-dcxiya_SF2RwWBTV5xZQ&oe=64FFA208[/img]
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polydigm
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BBCode quotes are very limited here, you can't put names in like in other forums unless you use rquote which is not real bbcode (obviously some thing
the creator of this software cooked up), and you only get those from quoting a post, because it's format requires correct post numbers and so on. But,
I'm quoting George Duke, not The Ursinator.
| Quote: | | I couldn't understand why he wanted me, because I was such a straight-laced jazz player. But he liked me because I was crazy. I would do anything on
the piano. |
Talk about a contradiction. I'm a straight laced jazz player, but I'm crazy and would do anything
on the piano.
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polydigm
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ursinator2.0
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Dooner’s World – Episode 82 Guest: Ed Mann – Frank Zappa's band 70 mins
Interesting conversation with Ed Mann under lockdown circumstances about 3 years ago.
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Eddie RUKidding
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Frank Zappa's problem with David Bowie Old Story But .............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i0Ld6RnOLk
South of the Border
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Plook
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That was awesome!!!
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