Lumpy Gravy is a 1968 solo album by Frank Zappa (originally credited as Francis Vincent Zappa, and as Frank Vincent Zappa on reissues), 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 third album overall (fourth released): his previous releases had been under the name of his group, the Mothers of Invention.
An entirely orchestral version of the album 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commissioned and briefly released, on August 7, 1967, by Capitol Records in the 4-track Stereo-Pak format only and then withdrawn due to a lawsuit from MGM Records.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.
Recording
left|thumb|In 1966, Frank Zappa was commissioned to compose [[Lumpy Gravy (1967 album)|Lumpy Gravy for Capitol Records.|266x266px]]
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. Zappa named the group assembled for the sessions the "Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra & Chorus".|width=25em|align=right|style=padding:8px;|border=1px
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, 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". The reedited version also incorporated additional musical content not on the original release of the album, including previously recorded surf music 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.
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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. 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". 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."
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." 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". Miles, writing for The History of Rock, wrote that the record "owed far more to Varèse and Stravinsky than to rock'n'roll."
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."
In 1984, the second version of Lumpy Gravy was remixed by Zappa, with new overdubs by bassist Arthur Barrow and drummer Chad Wackerman. Additional dialogue from the "piano people" sessions was included on Zappa's later album Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, and his final album, Civilization Phaze III in 1993. 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.
Track listing
All tracks composed by Frank Zappa.
1995 CD indexes
CD reissues have two tracks like the original LP, but the 1995 Rykodisc CD also has many indexes within the two tracks; these are listed below.
Personnel
; Musicians – Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
- Arnold Belnick – strings
- Harold Bemko – strings
- Chuck Berghofer – bass
- Jimmy Carl Black – chorus
- Jimmy Bond – bass
- Monica Boscia – chorus
- Dennis Budimir – guitar
- Frank Capp – drums
- Donald Christlieb – woodwind
- Gene Cipriano – woodwind
- Vincent DeRosa – french horn
- Joseph DiFiore – strings
- Jesse Ehrlich – strings
- Alan Estes – percussion, drums
- Gene Estes – percussion
- Louis "Louie the Turkey" Cuneo – chorus
- Roy Estrada – bass, chorus
- Larry Fanoga (Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood) – vocals, chorus
- Victor Feldman – percussion, drums
- Bunk Gardner – woodwind
- James Getzoff – strings
- Philip Goldberg – strings
- John Guerin – drums
- Bruce Hampton – chorus
- Jimmy "Senyah" Haynes – guitar
- Harry Hyams – strings
- Jules Jacob – woodwind
- Pete Jolly – piano, celeste, harpsichord
- Harold Kelling – vocals
- Ray Kelly – strings
- Jerome Kessler – strings
- Alexander Koltun – strings
- Bernard Kundell – strings
- William Kurasch – strings
- Michael Lang – piano, celeste, harpsichord
- Arthur Maebe – French horn
- Leonard Malarsky – strings
- Shelly Manne – drums
- Lincoln Mayorga – piano, celeste, harpsichord
- Ted Nash – woodwind
- Richard Parissi – French horn
- Glenn Phillips – vocals
- Don Randi – piano
- Jerome Reisler – strings
- Emil Richards – percussion
- Tony Rizzi – guitar
- John Rotella – percussion, woodwind
- Joseph Saxon – strings
- Ralph Schaeffer – strings
- Leonard Selic – strings
- Kenny Shroyer – trombone
- Paul Smith – piano, celeste, harpsichord
- Tommy Tedesco – guitar
- Al Viola – guitar
- Bob West – bass
- Tibor Zelig – strings
- Jimmy Zito – trumpet
; Production credits
- Frank Zappa – composer, conductor
- Cal Schenkel – artwork
Charts
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! Peak<br />position
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