FRANK ZAPPA — Lumpy Gravy (review)

FRANK ZAPPA — Lumpy Gravy album cover Album · 1968 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
Warthur
Lumpy Gravy was released as a Zappa album rather than having the Mothers of Invention tag because, although the music is still composed by Zappa, it's not a band effort and the piece in question isn't really intended for a band context - it's a weird rock and roll doo-wop free jazz orchestral piece with spoken word elements recorded from inside a piano. Segments would end up popping up in the MOI's contemporary work - "Oh No", for example, gets a vocal version on Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Really, the piece doesn't hang together brilliantly. To be honest, it's more like a grab-bag of Zappa's musical ideas with the spoken word parts breaking the different musical bits up - so there's some surf rock here, some tape experiments there, and the piano people are like the interludes between them. On that level, it's more of a musical manifesto than an album proper. There's a somewhat heavier emphasis on orchestral pieces, but fans of classical pieces would probably be better served by The Yellow Shark, on which the compositions are more than a minute or two long each. Worth a spin, but only if you're already a hardcore Zappa fan.
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