AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

I love this album, I think it's the best document of the original Mothers of Invention band in a live setting. These recordings from the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1968 were originally going to be used in the Uncle Meat film project (which Zappa eventually completed in the early 90's.) Hence, the "play" performed with the Orchestra which comprises the first half of the CD. This stuff is amusing if you are into Zappa's "characters" and "conceptual continuity", although musically it's probably more respectable for it's ambition (first time a "rock guy" wrote music for group plus orchestra) than as an enduring piece of music. Good fun though (and you can see it as well on the Uncle Meat video.)

The second half of the program is described in the liner notes as a typical "good, not great" Mothers performance. Daaaaaamn!! Imagine what they must have sounded like on a "great" night!!!! The band plays instrumental versions of tunes from the first few Mothers albums in a suite-like arrangement that blends jazz, rock and symphonic structures, culminating in FZ's monster guitar solo on "Orange County Lumber Truck."

I hear echoes of this music throughout the next decade of British prog rock. Where the future members of Hatfield & The North and Soft Machine in the audience that night? I wouldn't be surprised!!!!