Zapped

This cd has a somewhat cumbersome title; Ensemble Modern Plays Frank Zappa, Greggery Peccary and Other Persuasions, a Selection of Works. back in the vinyl days, I had three or four albums by Zappa and / or the Mothers of Invention but they have gone the way of all vunyl and it is maybe a little odd that the only Zappa music I have now is this cd which is not by him. I suspect that might have pleased Zappa himself though, who I think would have been more gratified to be remembered as a composer than as a performer. Particularly more than as a rock star. Hearing Ensemble Modern is interesting, they don't quite swing in the way that the originals often did when Zappa was using rock or jazz musicians but Zappa always kept a very tight control of the arrangements and allowed little if any jamming. So coming at it from a different performing tradition as Ensemble Modern do is in many ways truer to the spirit of the music. My only gripe with the cd is spending twenty minutes of its' hour length on the rather tiresome Greggery Peccary. Zappa was as interesting a musician as he thought he was but just maybe he was not as funny.