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spotlight! Zappa live after death
By Adam Goldstein
goldstea@mscd.edu

Frank Zappa Trance-Fusion (Zappa Records, 2006)

A good guitar solo is a tricky matter.

It takes a mastery of tone, phrasing, effects and just plain chops to create a solo that can fully engage, impress and involve an audience. Any guitarist taking a solo runs a dual risk of veering off into masturbatory musical acrobatics or, on the other end of the scale, falling into trite, overly simplistic phrases that say nothing musically.

Frank Zappa neatly avoids both pitfalls on Trance-Fusion, a new, posthumous release boasting 16 tracks of live, unadulterated guitar solos. Culled from tours in 1977, 1979, 1984 and 1988, the album’s guitar compositions reveal a player whose technical prowess matches his ear for composition, an improviser who can say as much with tone as he can with speed.

In the tradition of 1981’s three-disc Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar series and 1988’s double-disc Guitar, Trance-Fusion spotlights Zappa’s devotion to the format of the solo as a means of creating “instant compositions.” Like these releases, the casual listener may be deterred by the sheer density of instrumental music. For any fan of Zappa’s unique approach to soloing, this album lives up to the lofty standards set by its seminal predecessors.

Most of the album’s tracks come from Zappa’s final 10-piece touring ensemble in 1988, which included a five-piece horn section and boasted a majestic, orchestral sound. The band has been featured in several albums, but Trance-Fusion’s guitar tracks add another dimension to the last incarnation of Zappa’s highly disciplined, virtuoso live band.

“Chunga’s Revenge,” originally released in the 1970s as a raw, feedback-infused instrumental, finds a more epic treatment by the ’88 band. The bass line is reinforced by Kurt McGettrick’s growling baritone saxophone, while the main melody line is enhanced by Walt Fowler’s trumpet, Bruce Fowler’s trombone and Albert Wing’s tenor saxophone. For his final tour, Zappa chose a light, airy tone for his guitar solos that made full use of reverb and spacious phrasing. The more nuanced approach gives the solo on “Chunga’s Revenge” and other tracks from the ’88 tour, such as “Good Lobna” and “After Dinner Smoker,” a mature, meditative sound.

The tracks constantly skip from this final tour to excerpts from the ’77, ’79 and ’84 tours, in which Zappa, backed by a sparser ensemble, brandished a more stripped-down, pointed tone. “Bowling On Charen” and “Ask Dr. Stupid” feature personnel from albums such as Sheik Yerbouti and Joe’s Garage, capturing frenetic, on-stage guitar experiments that would eventually find fruition in a refined studio setting. In these early tracks, Zappa’s licks are densely packed with innovative phrasing as he switches seamlessly from ragged rock runs to melodies derived from Middle Eastern musical scales.

Solos from the ’84 tour, such as “Diplodocus” and “Butter or Cannons,” bear a hypnotic combination of these two sounds. Zappa’s phrasing has gained an amount of space and subtlety that would mark his later solos, but his tone retains the feedback and aggressiveness that characterized his earlier work. These tracks capture Zappa between the brash volume and swaggering tone of his smaller ensembles and the dreamy, reflective voice of his largest touring band.

In the space of 16 tracks chosen from over 10 years, Trance-Fusion intimately explores Zappa’s development as a guitar player and as a composer. The instrumental journey from the feedback-flooded intensity of the ’70s to the spacious extravagance of the ’88 tour proves a worthwhile voyage.