WAZOO

After spending the first half of 1972 laying down two big band jazz albums - Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo - whilst he was recuperating from his nasty fall at the Rainbow Theatre in late December 1971, Frank Zappa found himself inspired to take the gang on the road, his recovery having reached the point where he could stand up from time to time (but not for sustained periods, and he needed a leg brace to do so) and he was broadly able to conduct and play guitar.

Thus, the Grand Wazoo band took to the stage, in a series of lavish concerts, one of which is captured here. Shortly afterwards, the lineup would be slashed back from some 20 musicians to 10 - the so-called "Petit Wazoo" - but here you get the full-fat version of the group, performing a mixture of selections from the studio releases and new material, including an early all-instrumental workout for The Adventures of Greggery Peccary, which would eventually see a different version recorded for the Lather quadruple album (and slip out on Studio Tan when the record label did Frank dirty).

Whilst it just wasn't financially viable to keep the Grand Wazoo big band going for longer than it did (and rather expensive to attempt these live gigs to begin with), it's lucky that we got this recording of the endeavour, which turns out to have been a real tour de force, the band doing a fantastic job of executing the big, expansive sound of their studio endeavours onstage.

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