Frank zappa and the Ikettes

[pucho812]

Nothing like listen to music after reading a story it's based upon.
At one point in the zappa life, he recorded at bolic sound which was owned by ike turner.
He even recruited Tina Turner and the Ikettes to sing on the project. When they finally finished the difficult zappa music, the ikettes were proud of their accomplishment
Ike however had other notions about it basically not getting it. He insisted they not be credited on the original album release. I believe they have been credited on later versions of album artwork.
Anyway, Imagine doing this in the studio. Full band, no overdubs. Oh yeah, no pressure...

(I don't think tina was in this part, she can't be seen in the video)

Ikettes in the studio with Frank Zappa.

(Some samples with Tina Turner and the Ikettes, can really pick her voice out in the samples)
Frank zappa with Tina Turner

 

[JohnRoberts]

Thank you, I needed that.

Frank Zappa was a musical genius.

JR

 

[hodad]

There's a "Classic Albums" episode that covers Apostrophe & Overnite Sensation where they talk about using Ike's studio & recording with the Ikettes. There's some session photos & some film footage, but nothing like what you linked. That's great stuff.

 

[pucho812]

I been going over the first verse all day and laughing. but for the life of me I can't figure out the meter which is not 4/4 and easily noticed in the yum yum... and dum dum.... parts.


I ate a hot dog
It tasted real good
Then I watched a movie
From Hollywood

I ate a hot dog
It tasted real good
(Yum-yum yummy-yummy-yum
Yum-yum yummy-yummy-yum)
Then I watched a movie
From Hollywood
(Dum-dum dummy-dummy-dum
Dum-dum dummy-dummy-dum)

o.k. after looking at some sheet music, it start in 4/4 but goes to 12/8 to 7/8 back to 4/4. the math makes my head hurt just a hair.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Zappa was also a classical music composer so he had skills...

JR

 

[pucho812]

Zappa was also a classical music composer so he had skills...

JR

yes. He once hired to London Philharmonic to play some of his classical pieces. When the orchestra complained of the difficulty of the music, he countered with my rock band can play this.

 

[Mbira]

Man, this is so great.

yes. He once hired to London Philharmonic to play some of his classical pieces. When the orchestra complained of the difficulty of the music, he countered with my rock band can play this.

There's a Letterman interview where he talks about the experience and how he wasn't happy because the Philharmonic would just come in and sight read and because it was so expensive to have them do extra run throughs in order to get it right he had to release the album despite the mistakes.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Yup, classical orchestras don't generally perform new symphonies without first practicing the score.

I can imagine some old film orchestral sound tracks that were played cold depending on available budget. The early Star Wars (Williams) soundtrack was recorded by real orchestra. These days I expect synths to eliminate much live performance of orchestral music.

JR

 

[Mbira]

Yup, classical orchestras don't generally perform new symphonies without first practicing the score.

I can imagine some old film orchestral sound tracks that were played cold depending on available budget. The early Star Wars (Williams) soundtrack was recorded by real orchestra. These days I expect synths to eliminate much live performance of orchestral music.

I shadow the Austin Symphony Orchestra rehearsals here (I'm a composer), and yeah they generally work on a piece for four days or rehearsals (Monday-Thursday) and then perform Friday and Saturday. These are the "big" pieces (Mozart, etc) The conductor will have about a month where he's working on it (and all the other pieces).

Last season they did Indiana Jones (John Williams), and it was really cool because it was playing along with the movie and so there was a full cuing system (players all had in-ears) and the conductor had an electronic score with cue points and all sorts of markers, etc. It was a full on thing with whatever company handles the Williams stuff having come out from California with the film, the needed tech, etc. They were there on hand as tech support. Pretty interesting. It was amazing to get to actually read the Williams score as it was being played.

For the Netflix show we did last year (two years ago now?) The composer flew to Budapest and had about 4 hours with the orchestra to rehearse the more difficult cues and then the remaining 4 hours were solid recording of everything. I believe the did all the cues in one day. Individual players may have had the music a few days before hand to work on in on their own, but in my experience with those cues, a lot of it was hashed out on the spot.

 

[Tubetec]

One of Zappa earliest performances on TV was playing a piece specially comissioned for the bicycle , how he managed to keep a straight face I dont know. Also that Fuzz bass on the album version of Apostrophe is none other than Jack Bruce . I found a great radio interview with Zappa before talking about his life in the early years at Edgewood arsenal where his father worked ,being made wear gas masks as a child everytime an alarm went off obviously had an impact on him and made him ask a lot of awkward questions as to 'why'.

 

[pucho812]

Yes that was on the steve Allen show.

 

[Tubetec]

Franky was very nerdly before he became a hippy actually he always remained a square peg in a round hole despite the costume/hairstyle/musical changes . The clown like comedy routines of his later output bring on my gag reflex but I think that was the desired effect , an extremely intelligent individual ,just as well he turned his back on the war machine or his smarts would only have been put up to causing serious damage .