Lumpy Gravy | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | May 13, 1968 | |||
Recorded | February 13 – October 1967 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 31:45 | |||
Label | Verve | |||
Producer | Nick Venet | |||
Frank Zappa chronology | ||||
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Lumpy Gravy is a 1968 solo album by Frank Zappa (credited as Francis Vincent Zappa), written by Zappa and performed by a group of session players he dubbed the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. Zappa conducted the orchestra but did not perform on the album. It is his fourth album overall: his previous releases had been under the name of his group, the Mothers of Invention.
An entirely orchestral recording under the same name was commissioned and briefly released, on August 7, 1967, by Capitol Records in the 4-track Stereo-Pak format only and then withdrawn due to a lawsuit from MGM Records. MGM claimed that the album violated Zappa's contract with their subsidiary, Verve Records. In 1968 it was reedited and released by Verve on May 13, 1968. The new album consisted of two musique concrète pieces that combined elements from the original orchestral performance with elements of surf music and spoken word. It was praised for its music and editing.
Produced simultaneously with We're Only in It for the Money , Zappa saw Lumpy Gravy as the second part of a conceptual continuity that later included his final album, Civilization Phaze III .
Following the release of Freak Out! , the debut album of the rock band the Mothers of Invention, Capitol Records A&R representative Nick Venet commissioned an album of orchestral music composed by the Mothers of Invention's leader, Frank Zappa, a self-taught composer. Venet spent $40,000 on the album. [7] [8] Because Zappa's contract with Verve and MGM Records did not allow for him to perform on albums recorded for any other label, he could not play any instrument on the proposed album, and instead served as the conductor of an orchestra consisting of session musicians hired for the recording. Zappa stated that "my contract [with MGM] did not preclude me from doing that. I wasn't signed as a conductor." [7]
Lumpy Gravy was conceived as a short oratorio, written in eleven days. [8] Zappa named the group assembled for the sessions the "Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra & Chorus". [8]
Percussionist Emil Richards recalled that he did not know who Zappa was and did not take him seriously as the recording sessions began, believing that Zappa was merely the guitarist for a rock band. However, upon meeting them, Zappa handed the musicians the scores for the pieces, which were dense, complex and varied in time signatures. [7] Richards' close friend, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, was another member of the recording sessions. Tedesco mocked Zappa, believing that Zappa did not know what he was doing. [7] The bassoonist and bass clarinetist hired for the sessions refused to perform their parts, declaring them impossible to play. Zappa responded, "If I play your part, will you at least try it?" Zappa then used his guitar to demonstrate the parts for the musicians, who then agreed to perform their assigned parts. [7] By the end of the recording sessions, Richards and Tedesco became convinced of Zappa's talent, and became friends with the composer. Richards later performed on sessions which appeared on Zappa's album Orchestral Favorites . [7]
Capitol released the original all-orchestral Lumpy Gravy album on August 7, 1967, only on the 4-track cartridge format, apparently in limited numbers. Capitol also intended to release a single consisting of the pieces "Gypsy Airs" and "Sink Trap" to promote its release. [8] In response to the album's release, MGM threatened a lawsuit, claiming that its release violated Zappa's contract. [8]
During the litigation, Zappa expanded and significantly edited the album, adding spoken word and musique concrète interludes, as well as some pieces of music from his pre-Mothers archives. The original Lumpy Gravy was not re-released until 2009, with the Zappa Records triple-CD release, The Lumpy Money Project/Object .
Lumpy Gravy is edited together out of hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny pieces of tape which took a long time to collect. First of all you have to find just the right little noise and things that are going to go in there, and then you have to manually cut these pieces of tape together with a razor blade.
— Frank Zappa (1987) [9]
The dialogue segments were recorded at Apostolic Studios in New York City after Zappa discovered that the strings of the studio's grand piano would resonate if a person spoke near those strings. The "piano people" experiment involved Zappa having various speakers improvise dialogue using topics offered by Zappa. Most of the dialogue on the reedited Lumpy Gravy, recorded simultaneously with We're Only in It for the Money, [10] was spoken by a small group which included Motorhead Sherwood, Roy Estrada, Spider Barbour, All-Night John (the manager of the studio) and Louis Cuneo, who was noted for his laugh, which sounded like a "psychotic turkey". [8] The concept of the reedited album derived from Zappa's "big note" theory, which states that the universe consists of a single element, and that atoms are vibrations of that element, a "big note". [11]
The revised album proved to be very difficult to make, as the orchestral master tapes recovered from Capitol featured many poor splices. [11] The reedited version also incorporated additional musical content not on the original release of the album, including previously recorded surf music [11] and a 1963 Zappa-produced demo recording of a tune that later appeared in a 1967 recording under the title "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" on We're Only in It for the Money. Some of the editing was done in Zappa's living room. [12] On the 1967 and 1968 releases of the album, Zappa was credited as "Francis Vincent Zappa", as Zappa had believed that this was his real name. He later learned that his birth name was Frank Vincent Zappa, and this mistake was subsequently corrected in reissues of the album. [12]
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Great Rock Discography | 6/10 [15] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Uncut | 7/10 [17] |
The 1968 Lumpy Gravy album was well received by critics, and Zappa called it one of his favorite albums out of his own work, stating that it contains his favorite music. [18] Barry Miles, writing in International Times , described the album as fusing John Cage's Fontana Mix (1958) and John Carisi's "Moon Taj" (1962) with Zappa's distinctive style of "lyricism and cynicism", and praised Zappa's editing of the "loaded" conversation snippets, deeming them "masterpieces of editing". [19] In a mixed review, Jim Miller of Rolling Stone called it Zappa's "most curious" album to date, finding it to represent the extreme of his "fragmented musical approach", but believed it to be overall "rather inert" and criticised the spoken sections for seeming forced. However, they deemed it an important album, concluding: "It might be said that Zappa makes mistakes other rock composers would be proud to call their own best music; Lumpy Gravy is an idiosyncratic musical faux pas that is worth listening to for that reason alone." [20]
Retrospectively, AllMusic writer François Couture wrote, "The starting point of Zappa's 'serious music,' Lumpy Gravy suffers from a lack of coherence, but it remains historically important and contains many conceptual continuity clues for the fan." [13] David Cavanagh of Uncut wrote that the "collage-style concept album" features "some of his most avant-garde music as well as some of his most bizarre encounters with his fellow Mothers." [21] Ian Stonehouse of The Rough Guide to Rock wrote that the album shows Zappa at his "most original", noting its cut-up blend of musique concrète, R&B, jazz and "mumblings from inside a grand piano", and deemed it a "masterpiece that anticipated sampling technology". [22] Miles, writing for The History of Rock , wrote that the record "owed far more to Varèse and Stravinsky than to rock'n'roll." [23]
Edwin Pouncey of The Wire writes that the album is "[t]he culmination of Zappa's commitment to contemporary classical and electronic music", and deemed it crucial for combining "classically motivated interludes, electronic abstractions and rambling spoken word compositions within a basic rock structure. Whereas other 'rock stars' frequently toyed with vague notions of musique concrète and experimental music, Zappa incorporated them into a medium that extended his musical repertoire and pushed the prowess of The Mothers Of Invention to new heights of skill and endurance." [4] Ultimate Classic Rock writer Ryan Reed describes it as an "avant-garde masterpiece" which has become overlooked in Zappa's discography for being one of his more unorthodox recordings, "branching from musique concrete to gorgeous jazz-fusion to proto-electronic hysteria to pitch-shifted rock grooves". They write that it has had "a sizable influence on both rock and avant-garde artists over the years". [24]
In 1984, the second version of Lumpy Gravy was remixed by Zappa, with new overdubs by bassist Arthur Barrow and drummer Chad Wackerman. [7] This third version of the album was not released in full at the time; an excerpt appeared in a The Old Masters sampler sent to radio stations. [25] Additional dialogue from the "piano people" sessions was included on Zappa's later album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention , [26] and his final album, Civilization Phaze III in 1993. [27] In 2009, the box set Lumpy Money was released, containing the 1967 and 1984 versions of Lumpy Gravy, and audio documentary material derived from the sessions that produced the original 1967 orchestral sessions, dialogue which appeared in the 1968 release of Lumpy Gravy, and the album We're Only in It for the Money. [28]
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "The Way I See It, Barry" | 0:06 |
2. | "Duodenum" | 1:32 |
3. | "Oh No" | 2:03 |
4. | "Bit of Nostalgia" | 1:35 |
5. | "It's from Kansas" | 0:30 |
6. | "Bored Out 90 Over" | 0:31 |
7. | "Almost Chinese" | 0:25 |
8. | "Switching Girls" | 0:29 |
9. | "Oh No Again" | 1:13 |
10. | "At the Gas Station" | 2:41 |
11. | "Another Pickup" | 0:54 |
12. | "I Don't Know If I Can Go Through This Again" | 3:49 |
Total length: | 15:50 |
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Very Distraughtening" | 1:33 |
2. | "White Ugliness" | 2:22 |
3. | "Amen" | 1:33 |
4. | "Just One More Time" | 0:58 |
5. | "A Vicious Circle" | 1:12 |
6. | "King Kong" | 0:43 |
7. | "Drums Are Too Noisy" | 0:58 |
8. | "Kangaroos" | 0:57 |
9. | "Envelops the Bath Tub" | 3:42 |
10. | "Take Your Clothes Off" | 1:53 |
Total length: | 15:56 |
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Chart (1968) | Peak position |
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US Top LPs ( Billboard ) | 159 |
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, and orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.
We're Only in It for the Money is the third album by American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on March 4, 1968, by Verve Records. As with the band's first two efforts, it is a concept album, and satirizes left- and right-wing politics, particularly the hippie subculture, as well as the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was conceived as part of a project called No Commercial Potential, which produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy, Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, and Uncle Meat.
Freak Out! is the debut studio album by American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on June 27, 1966, by Verve Records. Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, it is a satirical expression of frontman Frank Zappa's perception of American pop culture and the nascent freak scene of Los Angeles. It was also one of the earliest double albums in rock music, as well as the first two-record debut album. In the UK, the album was originally released as an edited single disc.
Uncle Meat is the sixth album by the Mothers of Invention, and seventh overall by Frank Zappa, 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.
Civilization Phaze III is the sixty-third album by Frank Zappa, released posthumously as a double album on October 31, 1994. It was the first studio album of new material from Zappa since 1986's Jazz from Hell. The album marks the third part of a conceptual continuity that started with We're Only in It for the Money (1968), with the second part being a re-edited version of Zappa's 1967 album Lumpy Gravy. Zappa described the album as a "two-act opera", but in lieu of traditional recitatives and arias, it alternates brief spoken word passages with musical numbers created on a Synclavier using a combination of sampled and synthesized sounds. Much of the sampled material in the second half of the album was originally recorded by Ensemble Modern and other musicians to Zappa's specifications.
200 Motels is a 1971 surrealist musical film written and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer, and featuring music by Zappa. An international co-production of United States and the United Kingdom, the film stars the Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr.
Bizarre Records, self-identified simply as Bizarre, was a production company and record label formed for artists discovered by rock musician Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen.
Cruising with Ruben & the Jets is the fourth album by the Mothers of Invention, and fifth overall by Frank Zappa, released under the alias Ruben and the Jets. Released on December 2, 1968 on Bizarre and Verve Records with distribution by MGM Records, it is a concept album, influenced by 1950s doo-wop and rock and roll. The album's concept deals with a fictitious Chicano doo-wop band called Ruben & the Jets, represented by the cover illustration by Cal Schenkel, which depicts the Mothers of Invention as anthropomorphic dogs. It was conceived as part of a project called No Commercial Potential, which produced three other albums: Lumpy Gravy, We're Only in It for the Money and Uncle Meat.
Quaudiophiliac is a compilation album featuring music by Frank Zappa, released in DVD-Audio format by Barking Pumpkin Records in 2004. It compiles recordings he made while experimenting with quadraphonic, or four-channel, sound in the 1970s. Zappa prepared quadraphonic mixes of a number of his 1970s albums, with both Over-Nite Sensation (1973) and Apostrophe (') (1974) being released in discrete quadraphonic on Zappa's DiscReet Records label.
The Mothers of Invention were an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows.
Läther is the sixty-fifth official album by Frank Zappa. It was released posthumously as a three-CD set on Rykodisc in 1996. The album's title is derived from bits of comic dialog that link the songs. Zappa also explained that the name is a joke, based on "common bastardized pronunciation of Germanic syllables by the Swiss."
Orchestral Favorites is an album by Frank Zappa, released in May 1979 on his own DiscReet Records label, distributed by Warner Bros. Records. The album is entirely instrumental and features music performed by the 37-piece Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra. It reached number 168 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States.
London Symphony Orchestra is a pair of albums by Frank Zappa, featuring his original symphonic compositions conducted by Kent Nagano. They were recorded at the same sessions in January 1983, and originally released as London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. I in 1983, London Symphony Orchestra, Vol. II, in 1987, and later combined and reissued on a Rykodisc CD as London Symphony Orchestra Vol. I & II in 1995.
"Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" is a song written by Frank Zappa, with the first officially available version being recorded and released by The Mothers of Invention on their 1968 album We're Only in It for the Money. The song was originally recorded as an instrumental by Frank Zappa in 1961 at Pal Recording Studio.
"Duodenum" is a song by Frank Zappa that first appeared as part of "Lumpy Gravy Part One" on the Verve Records edition of Lumpy Gravy. A surf music instrumental, it runs for approximately 1:32 and is the second identifiable track on the album, preceded by "The Way I See It, Barry" and followed by "Oh No". Documentation purports that this piece was likely produced and recorded by Zappa sometime between 1963 and 1965.
The Lumpy Money Project/Object is a compilation album by Frank Zappa. Released posthumously on January 23, 2009 as Official Release #85, it compiles the releases Lumpy Gravy and We're Only in It for the Money with previously unreleased material, with the overall package serving as an audio documentary of the production of the two albums, which share conceptual continuity themes. It is project/object #2 in a series of 40th Anniversary FZ Audio Documentaries, following MOFO (2006).
The Old Masters is a box set series by Frank Zappa, released in three volumes on Barking Pumpkin Records from April 1985 to December 1987, consisting of studio and live albums by Zappa and The Mothers of Invention originally released from 1966 to 1976 on other labels, as well as "Mystery Discs" which contained previously unreleased material. The graphics on all three sets was airbrush illustrated by Larry Grossman. 200 Motels was not included in the series as it was the only Zappa/Mothers album for which Zappa was unable to secure the rights.
Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood was an American rock musician notable for being a member of the original version of Frank Zappa's band the Mothers of Invention, providing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects. He appeared on all the albums of the original Mothers line-up and the 'posthumous' releases Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh, as well as certain subsequent Zappa albums. He also appeared in the films 200 Motels, Video from Hell and Uncle Meat.
This is the complete discography of the main 12-inch (8000) series of LPs issued by Verve Records, a label founded in 1956 by producer Norman Granz in Los Angeles, California. Alongside new sessions Granz re-released many of the recordings of his earlier labels Clef and Norgran on Verve.
Lumpy Gravy, also known as Lumpy Gravy (Primordial), is the recalled original debut solo album by Frank Zappa. It is an entirely orchestral recording written by Zappa and performed by a group of session players he dubbed the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra. Zappa conducted the orchestra but did not perform on the album. It was commissioned and briefly released, on August 7, 1967, by Capitol Records in the 4-track Stereo-Pak format only and then withdrawn due to a lawsuit from MGM Records. MGM claimed that the album violated Zappa's contract with their subsidiary, Verve Records, and the album was recalled.
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