LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA VOL. I

This was the first of Frank Zappa's "serious" orchestral albums. The album consists of three pieces. The first two, Sad Jane, and the three movement Mo 'n Herb's Vacation highlight Zappa fascination with a few twentieth century classical composers, particularly Igor Stavinsky and Edgard Varèse. The third piece is Bogus Pomp, in this case a more developed version of some of the orcestral music from "200 Motels".

The music is pretty good for avant-garde classical, although the rocording is plagued with inconsistant miking (some instrument sections sound quite far away), and at times (and Zappa had complained about this), the musicians just didn't take the music seriously enough.

The best part are the percussion sections. Zappa brough along Chad Wackerman and Ed Mann from his band, and they provide some excitement to the album.

As such, the album is not prog rock at all, but still gets three stars from me.