It’s safe to say that 1971 ended on a terrible note for Frank
\nZappa. First, he and the Mothers Of Invention lost all their
\ninstruments in a fire in Montreux – yes, the infamous fire
\nimmortalized on Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water”. Then, when
\nplaying a concert in London, he was pushed off the stage and into
\nthe orchestra pit by a deranged “fan”, causing Zappa to be
\nwheelchair-bound for most of 1972. (The incident also caused
\nZappa’s voice to drop an octave.)<\/p>\n
So one can argue whether
\nWaka\/Jawaka<\/i> was part of the natural progression of Zappa’s
\nmusic, or whether it was a matter of Zappa having a little more
\nfree time on his hands than he originally planned. Whatever the
\ncase, Zappa’s third solo release is a bit of a letdown, featuring a
\ncrisper production sound and a little more edge to his guitar work,
\nbut otherwise not sounding as inspired as his previous works.<\/p>\n
It would be wrong to say that this disc is bad; indeed, there
\nare times that the four tracks on this one appeal to me. The title
\ntrack is probably the best of the bunch, capturing Zappa’s mood in
\na jazz-rock fusion that absorbs and excites the listener.
\nRegrettably, this turns out to be the best effort on the disc – and
\nwhen there are only four songs to bank on, that puts the artist in
\na dangerous position, having almost nothing to fall back on.<\/p>\n
It’s made a little more dangerous when you lead off the disc
\nwith “Big Swifty,” a 17-minute composition that doesn’t know
\nwhether it wants to follow in the tradition of works like “Peaches
\nEn Regalia” or if it wants to blaze its own musical trail, so it
\ndoes neither. The fact is, while there are moments during this
\npiece which are worthy of excitement and attention, the listener
\nwill probably find themselves getting very bored while this one
\nunfolds. That’s a shame, really, because this particular number
\ncould have really been a foundation for Zappa to build the whole
\ndisc on.<\/p>\n
The two remaining tracks, “Your Mouth” and “It Just Might Be A
\nOne-Shot Deal,” aren’t anything special, though they’re by no means
\nthrowaways. Of the two, “One-Shot Deal” seems to be the more
\nlasting of them, especially as it goes straight into “Waka\/Jawaka”
\nseamlessly.<\/p>\n
The key word here is “excitement” – or, to best describe
\nWaka\/Jawaka<\/i>, a lack thereof. Where
\nHot Rats<\/i> seemed to constantly unfold into something new,
\ninnovative and exciting, this disc seems to be perfectly content to
\njust keep pace with previous musical outings. I’m not saying I
\ncould have done better had I been in Zappa’s shoes at this stage in
\nhis career, but one would like to think that the forced time off
\nwould have really allowed Zappa’s creativity to peak. Instead,
\nWaka\/Jawaka<\/i> sounds like a third-rate, albeit somewhat
\nentertaining,
\nHot Rats<\/i> – and I don’t think that’s what Zappa’s aim ever
\nwas.<\/p>\n
2005 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault.” All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of the
\nZappa Family Trust \/ record label, and is used for informational
\npurposes only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5625],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38515","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-frank-zappa","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38515"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}