part of an unsuccessful search for the opening and closing music to brian de palma’s brilliant film, [a necessity for viewing], femme fetale (2002), which i know, but can’t place. i think it’s an orchestral version of a zappa piece… i thought it might be part of boulez conducting zappa, but doesn’t seem to be the case. frustrated by not being able to place it… maybe it’s a version of his king kong… nope. further research will follow.

so in lieu of that:

though a bit out of sync, this as Z put it: Electric Aunt Jemima/Prelude To King Kong

this is boulez conducting Z’s very short piece, navel aviation in art. pure –hinge. 🙂

and for ‘good’ measure… far from his best work, a bit pedestrian really, but interesting that LSO decided to perform it.

and well, i guess Z had a double bill in london: ‘amazing’ from the vantage of 2018 what such a reputable venue would happily perform, in 1968.

i prefer this live performance version… 🙂 i’m assuming Z blew the minds of his fans with this work, negatively… though definitely featuring the brilliance of his band’s musicianship. so it’s another FZ fuck you to conventions.

and well… can’t help but post this 1968 BBC performance… really terrible sound quality, but hey, so is the video. but at least it shows the body performing. so it’s documentation. no need to listen to much, see the following studio version for as good sound quality as youtube allows. youtube could, if they chose, provide high fidelity. it doesn’t of course, by choice. Uncle Meat is the fifth studio album by The Mothers of Invention, released as a double album in 1969. Uncle Meat was originally developed as a part of No Commercial Potential, a project which spawned three other albums sharing a conceptual connection: We’re Only in It for the Money, Lumpy Gravy and Cruising with Ruben & the Jets.

Z has said of the album: “It’s all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had all the master tapes and I could take a razor blade and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to. Then I could take that razor blade and cut it apart and reassemble it a different way, and it still would make sense. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related.”1 Which relates this work to Earle Brown’s concept of indeterminant,  open form, composition.

1. Zappa: A Biography – Barry Miles – Google Boeken. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-11-11.

so, here’s a better sound quality studio version of king kong, of which there are many, and is definitely one of Z’s great works. remember varese.

i’d be remiss not to include here, Z’s ongoing co-recognition between him and the great violinist, jean-luc ponty:

with respect to Z’s comment about using a razor to multiply compose/perform uncle meat, which of course, acquires another deep sea philosophical reference: