Frank Zappa - New York 1968 (Remastered, Live On Broadcasting) '2025

Tracks list

	Tracklist:

1. Jazz Rock Heavily Influenced by Al Kooper (Live) (04:24)
2. Help I'm a Rock / Transylvania Boogie (Live) (12:34)
3. Baby Love (Live) (00:56)
4. Big Leg Emma (Live) (03:37)
5. Holiday in Berlin (Live) (10:12)
6. Trouble Every Day (Live) (11:34)
7. The Orange County Lumber Truck Medley (Live) (17:17)


 moreZappa was born Frank Vincent Zappa in Baltimore, MD, on December 21,
1940. For most of his life, he was under the mistaken impression that he had
been named exactly after his father, a Sicilian immigrant who was a high school
teacher at the time of his son's birth, that he was "Francis Vincent Zappa, Jr."
That was what he told interviewers, and it was extensively reported. It was only
many years later that Zappa examined his birth certificate and discovered that,
in fact, his first name was Frank, not Francis. The real Francis Zappa took a
job with the Navy during World War II, and he spent the rest of his career
working in one capacity or another for the government or in the defense
industry, resulting in many family moves. Zappa's mother, Rose Marie (Colimore)
Zappa, was a former librarian and typist. During his early childhood, the family
lived in Baltimore, Opa-Locka, FL, and Edgewood, MD. In December 1951, they
moved to California when Zappa's father took a job teaching metallurgy at the
Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey. The same year, Zappa had first shown an
interest in becoming a musician, joining the school band and playing the snare
drum.

Although the Zappa family continued to live in California for the rest of
Zappa's childhood, they still moved frequently; by the time Zappa graduated from
Antelope Valley Joint Union High School in Lancaster in June 1958, it was the
seventh high school he had attended. Meanwhile, his interest in music had grown.
He had become particularly attracted to R&B, joining a band as a drummer in
1955. Simultaneously, he had become a fan of avant-garde classical music,
particularly the work of Edgard Varèse. After his high school graduation,
Zappa studied music at several local colleges off and on. He also switched to
playing the guitar.

Zappa married Kathryn J. Sherman on December 28, 1960; the marriage ended in
divorce in 1964. Meanwhile, he played in bands and worked on the scores of
low-budget films. It was in seeking to record his score for one of these films,
The World's Greatest Sinner, that he began working at the tiny Pal recording
studio in Cucamonga, CA, run by Paul Buff, in November 1961. He and Buff began
writing and recording pop music with studio groups and licensing the results to
such labels as Del-Fi Records and Original Sound Records. On August 1, 1964,
Zappa bought the studio from Buff and renamed it Studio Z. On March 26, 1965, he
was arrested by a local undercover police officer who had entrapped him by
asking him to record a pornographic audiotape. Convicted of a misdemeanor, he
spent ten days in jail, an experience that embittered him. After completing his
sentence, he closed the studio, moved into Los Angeles, and joined a band called
the Soul Giants that featured his friend, singer Ray Collins, along with bass
player Roy Estrada and drummer Jimmy Carl Black. In short order, he induced the
group to play his original compositions instead of covers, and to change their
name to the Mothers (reportedly on Mother's Day, May 10, 1965).

In Los Angeles, the Mothers were able to obtain a manager, Herb Cohen, and
audition successfully to appear in popular nightclubs such as the Whiskey Go-Go
by the fall of 1965. There they were seen by record executive Tom Wilson, who
signed them to the Verve Records subsidiary of MGM Records on March 1, 1966.
(Verve required that the suggestive name "The Mothers" be modified to "The
Mothers of Invention.") The contract called for the group to submit five albums
in two years, and they immediately went into the studio to record the first of
those albums, Freak Out! By this time, Elliot Ingber had joined the group on
guitar, making it a quintet. An excess of material and Zappa's agreement to
accept a reduced publishing royalty led to the highly unusual decision to
release it as a double-LP, an unprecedented indulgence for a debut act that was
practically unheard, much less for an established one. (Bob Dylan's Blonde on
Blonde appeared during the same period, but it was his seventh album.)

Freak Out! was released on June 27, 1966. It was not an immediate success
commercially, but it entered the Billboard chart for the week ending February
11, 1967, and eventually spent 23 weeks in the charts. In July 1966, Zappa met
Adelaide Gail Sloatman; they married in September 1967, prior to the birth, on
September 28, 1967, of their first child, a daughter named Moon Unit Zappa who
would record with her father. She was followed by a son, Dweezil, on September
5, 1969. He, too, would become a recording artist, as would Ahmet Zappa, born
May 15, 1974. A fourth child, Diva, was born in August 1979. During the summer
of 1966, Zappa hired drummer Denny Bruce and keyboardist Don Preston, making the
Mothers of Invention a septet, but by November 1966, when the Mothers of
Invention went back into the studio to record their second album, Absolutely
Free, Bruce had been replaced by Billy Mundi; Ingber had been replaced by Jim
Fielder; and Zappa had hired two horn players, Bunk Gardner on wind instruments
and Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood on saxophone, bringing the band up to a nine-piece
unit. The album was recorded in four days and released in June 1967. It entered
the charts in July and reached the Top 50.

The Mothers of Invention moved to New York City in November 1966 for a booking
at a Greenwich Village club called the Balloon Farm that began on Thanksgiving
Day and ran through New Year's Day, 1967. After a two-week stint in Montreal,
they returned to California, where Fielder left the group in February. In March,
Zappa began recording his first solo album, Lumpy Gravy, having signed to
Capitol Records under the impression that he was not signed as an individual to
Verve, a position Verve would dispute. Later that month, the Mothers of
Invention returned to New York City for another extended engagement at the
Garrick Theater in Greenwich Village that ran during Easter week and was
sufficiently successful that Herb Cohen booked the theater for the summer. That
run began on May 24, 1967, and ran off and on through September 5. During this
period, Ian Underwood joined the band, playing saxophone and piano. In August,
the group began recording its third album, We're Only in It for the Money.

In September 1967, the Mothers of Invention toured Europe for the first time,
playing in the U.K., Sweden, and Denmark. On October 1, Verve failed to exercise
its option to extend the band's contract, although they still owed the label
three more LPs. They finished recording We're Only in It for the Money in
October, but its release was held up because of legal concerns about its
proposed cover photograph, an elaborate parody of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was finally resolved by putting the picture on
the inside of the fold-out LP sleeve. We're Only in It for the Money was
released on March 4, 1968, and it reached the Top 30. Another legal dispute was
resolved when Verve purchased the tapes of Lumpy Gravy from Capitol. Zappa then
finished recording this orchestral work, and Verve released it under his name
(and that of "the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra and Chorus") on
May 13, 1968; it spent five weeks in the charts.

Although the Mothers of Invention still owed one more LP to Verve, Zappa already
was thinking ahead. In the fall of 1967, he began recording Uncle Meat, the
soundtrack for a proposed film, with work continuing through February 1968.
During this period, Billy Mundi left the band and was replaced on drums by
Arthur Dyer Tripp III. In March, Zappa and Herb Cohen announced that they were
setting up their own record label, Bizarre Records, to be distributed by the
Reprise Records subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records. The label was intended to
record not only the Mothers of Invention, but also acts Zappa discovered. Early
in the summer, Ray Collins quit the Mothers of Invention, who continued to tour.
Their performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London on October 25, 1968, was
released in 1991 as the album Ahead of Their Time. That month, Bizarre was
formally launched with the release of the single "The Circle," by Los Angeles
street singer Wild Man Fischer. In November, guitarist Lowell George joined the
Mothers of Invention. In December, Verve released the band's final album on its
contract, Cruisin' with Ruben & the Jets, on which Zappa for once played it
straight, leading the group through a set of apparently sincere doo wop and R&B
material. The LP spent 12 weeks in the charts. (Zappa was then free of Verve,
although his disputes with the company were not over. Verve put out a
compilation, Mothermania: The Best of the Mothers, in March 1969, and it spent
nine weeks in the charts.)

The ambitious double-LP Uncle Meat, the fifth Mothers of Invention album, was
released by Bizarre on April 21, 1969. It reached the Top 50. (The movie it was
supposed to accompany did not appear until a home video release in 1989.) In
May, Bizarre released Pretties for You, the debut album by Alice Cooper, the
only act discovered by the label that would go on to substantial success (after
switching to Warner Bros. Records proper, that is).The same month, Lowell George
left the band; later, he and Roy Estrada would form Little Feat. Zappa began
working on a second solo album, Hot Rats, in July 1969. On August 19, the
Mothers of Invention gave their final performance in their original form,
playing on Canadian TV at the end of a tour. One week later, Zappa announced
that he was breaking up the band, although, as it turned out, this did not mean
that he would not use the name "the Mothers of Invention" for groups he led in
the future. Hot Rats, the second album to be credited to Frank Zappa, was
released on October 10, 1969. It spent only six weeks in the charts at the time,
but it would become one of Zappa's best-loved collections, with the instrumental
"Peaches en Regalia" a particular favorite. Although the Mothers of Invention no
longer existed as a performing unit, Zappa possessed extensive tapes of them,
live and in the studio, and using that material, he assembled a new album, Burnt
Weeny Sandwich, released in February 1970; it made the Top 100.

At the invitation of Zubin Mehta, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra, Zappa assembled a new group of rock musicians dubbed the Mothers for
the performance, with the orchestra, of a work called 200 Motels at UCLA on May
15, 1970. Adding singers Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, formerly of the Turtles,
Zappa launched a tour with this version of the Mothers in June 1970. (Also
included were a returning Ian Underwood, keyboardist George Duke, drummer
Aynsley Dunbar, and guitarist Jeff Simmons.) In August, Bizarre released another
archival Mothers of Invention album, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, which charted.
Chunga's Revenge, released in October, was billed as a Zappa solo album, even
though it featured the current lineup of the Mothers; it spent 14 weeks in the
charts. After touring the U.S. that fall, the group went to Europe on December
1. From January 28 to February 5, 1971, they were in Pinewood Studios in the
U.K. making a movie version of 200 Motels with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
and co-stars Theodore Bikel, Ringo Starr, and Keith Moon of the Who. Zappa had
planned a concert with the Royal Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall on
February 8 as a money-saving tactic, since according to union rules, he could
then pay them for the filming/recording session as if it were rehearsals for the
concert. But this strategy backfired when the Royal Albert Hall canceled the
concert, alleging that Zappa's lyrics were too vulgar. He added to his expenses
by suing the Royal Albert Hall, eventually losing in court.

On June 5 and 6, 1971, the Mothers appeared during the closing week of the
Fillmore East theater in New York City, recording their shows for a live album,
Fillmore East, June 1971, quickly released on August 2. It became Zappa's first
album to reach the Top 40 since We're Only in It for the Money three years
earlier. John Lennon and Yoko Ono had appeared as guests during the June 6 show,
and they used their performance on their 1972 album Some Time in New York City.
The Mothers gave a concert at the Pauley Pavilion at UCLA on August 7, 1971, and
the show was recorded for the album Just Another Band from L.A., released in May
1972, which made the Top 100. They continued to tour into the fall. 200 Motels
premiered in movie theaters on October 29, 1971, with a double-LP soundtrack
album released by United Artists that made the Top 100. Meanwhile, the Mothers'
European tour was eventful, to say the least. On December 4, 1971, the group
appeared at the Montreux Casino in Geneva, Switzerland, but their show stopped
when a fan fired off a flare gun that set the venue on fire. The incident was
the inspiration for Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the Water." Six days later, as
the Mothers were performing at the Rainbow Theatre in London on December 10, a
deranged fan jumped on-stage and pushed Zappa into the orchestra pit. He
suffered a broken ankle, among other injuries, and was forced to recuperate for
months. This was the end both of the tour and of this edition of the Mothers.

While convalescing at home in Los Angeles, Zappa organized a new big band to
play jazz-fusion music; he dubbed it the Grand Wazoo Orchestra and recorded two
albums with it. Waka/Jawaka, billed as a Zappa solo album, came out in July 1972
and spent seven weeks in the charts. The Grand Wazoo, credited to the Mothers,
appeared in December and missed the charts. By September 10, Zappa felt well
enough to play two weeks of dates with the group, now billed as the Mothers,
starting at the Hollywood Bowl. He then cut the personnel down to ten pieces
(the "Petit Wazoo" band) and toured from late October to mid-December.

The start of 1973 marked a new and surprisingly popular phase in Zappa's career.
He assembled a new lineup of Mothers, made a batch of new recordings on which he
himself sang lead vocals (his voice having dropped half an octave as a result of
injuring his neck when he was thrown from the stage), and hit the road for the
most extensive touring of his career. Inaugurating the new band in Fayetteville,
NC, on February 23, he spent 183 days of 1973 on the road, including tours of
the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Meanwhile, the Bizarre Records deal with
Reprise/Warner had run out, and he launched a new label, also distributed by
Warner, DiscReet Records, its first release being Over-Nite Sensation in
September 1973. The album reached the Top 40, stayed in the charts nearly a
year, and went gold. It was followed in April 1974 by a Zappa solo album,
Apostrophe (‘). Much to Zappa's surprise, radio stations began playing a
track called "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow." A single edit of the song actually
spent several weeks in the lower reaches of the Hot 100, and Apostrophe
(‘) peaked at number ten for the week ending June 29, 1974, the highest
chart position ever achieved by a Zappa album. The LP also went gold.

Zappa continued to tour extensively in 1974. His next album, the double-LP live
collection Roxy & Elsewhere, credited to "Zappa/Mothers," appeared in September
1974 and made the Top 30. Adding his old friend Captain Beefheart to the band,
he played shows at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, TX, on May 20 and
21, 1975, that he recorded for the album Bongo Fury, credited to Frank
Zappa/Captain Beefheart/The Mothers, released in October; it made the Top 100.
Prior to that had come One Size Fits All, credited to Frank Zappa & the Mothers
of Invention, released in June; it made the Top 30. On September 17 and 18,
1975, two concerts of Zappa's orchestral music were performed by a group dubbed
the Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra (in memory of Lumpy Gravy) and
conducted by Michael Zearott at Royce Hall, UCLA. The shows were recorded, but
the material was not released until May 1979 as Orchestral Favorites, which
spent several weeks in the charts. Starting on September 27, 1975, Zappa
launched another extended period of touring, staying in the U.S. through a New
Years concert at the Forum in Los Angeles, then playing in Australia, Japan, and
Europe, finishing on March 17, 1976. This ended another phase in his career. He
split with his longtime manager Herb Cohen and disbanded his group, which,
because of legal disputes with Cohen, would turn out to have been the last one
called the Mothers or the Mothers of Invention. Hereafter, he would perform and
record simply as Frank Zappa. There were also other legal issues. In October
1976, he reached an out-of-court settlement in a suit he had waged against
MGM/Verve that resulted in his winning the rights to the masters of his early
albums.

Zappa surprised fans when his name turned up as the producer of a new album by
Grand Funk Railroad, Good Singin', Good Playin', in August 1976. In September,
he launched his first world tour under his own name, playing in the U.S., the
Far East, and Europe through February 1977. Zoot Allures, the last album to be
credited to the Mothers, was released on Warner Bros. Records on October 29,
1976, the DiscReet label apparently being claimed by Cohen; it reached the Top
100. Zappa was also seeking to end his deal with Warner. In March 1977, he
delivered four albums to the label simultaneously (the initial titles were
Studio Tan, Hot Rats III [Waka/Jawaka having counted as Hot Rats II], Zappa's
Orchestral Favorites, and the double album Live in New York, recorded in
December 1976); he demanded the four $60,000 advances the albums called for, and
sued Warner for breach of contract when it did not pay. In the summer of 1977,
he announced that he had concluded his contract with Warner. He declared that
the four albums really constituted a single work called Leather (later spelled
Läther), which he sold to Mercury/Phonogram Records. Warner then sued to
block its release.

On September 8, 1977, Zappa launched another North American tour, staying on the
road until New Year's Eve. His shows from October 28-31 at the Palladium in New
York City were filmed and recorded, the material later emerging in the movie
Baby Snakes. The European leg of the tour opened in London on January 24, 1978.
The resolutions of Zappa's legal disputes led to an unusually large number of
releases over the next year. Zappa in New York (originally called Live in New
York) was released on DiscReet in March 1978 and made the Top 100. Studio Tan
appeared in September 1978 and charted. Sleep Dirt (originally called Hot Rats
III) was released in January 1979 and charted. Orchestral Favorites completed
the releases of the material Zappa had delivered to Warner in March 1977. With
these matters settled, Zappa launched Zappa Records, with distribution through
Mercury/Phonogram in the U.S. and CBS Records in the rest of the world,
releasing the double-LP Sheik Yerbouti on March 3, 1979. The album managed to
distinguish itself from all the other Zappa albums in the record bins and peaked
at number 21, Zappa's best showing in five years, promoted by the single
"Dancin' Fool," which made the Top 50. That track was nominated for a Grammy for
Best Rock Vocal Performance (Male), and "Rat Tomago," another track on the
album, got a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

Zappa toured Europe and Japan in the spring of 1979, then returned to the U.S.,
where he completed work on his home studio, called the Utility Muffin Research
Kitchen, on September 1. The home studio and his continuing practice of
recording his shows, along with greater control over his record releases, seemed
to free Zappa to issue more records. Joe's Garage Act I was released in
September 1979 and made the Top 30; it was followed in November by the double-LP
Joe's Garage Acts II & III, which made the Top 100. Baby Snakes, the film of the
1977 Halloween shows in New York, opened on December 21, 1979. A soundtrack
album did not appear until 1983. Zappa spent much of 1980 on the road, beginning
a tour of North America and Europe on March 25, with dates continuing through
July 3, and then touring again from October 10 through Christmas.

Amazingly, Zappa did not release an album during 1980. (A single, "I Don't Wanna
Get Drafter," just missed making the Hot 100 in May.) But he made up for that in
1981. In May, yet another new label, Barking Pumpkin Records, was launched with
the release of a double-LP, Tinseltown Rebellion, which made the Top 100. By
now, Zappa had perfected a method of melding studio and live performances on his
records, such that the finished versions were a combination of the two. Also in
May 1981, he simultaneously released three instrumental albums via mail order:
Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar, Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar Some More,
and Return of the Son of Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar. In September came
another double album, You Are What You Is, that made the Top 100.

Zappa's spring/summer tour of Europe in 1982 was plagued with problems including
canceled dates and even a riot at one show; after finishing the stint on July
14, he did not tour again for two years. Meanwhile, on May 3, 1982, he released
a new album, Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, and it featured
another of his surprise hit singles, as radio picked up on "Valley Girl," a
track featuring a vocal by his daughter Moon Unit Zappa, imitating the character
and employing the slang of a typical Southern California valley girl. The song
peaked at number 32 on September 11, 1982, making it the most successful single
of Zappa's career. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance
by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The album made the Top 30. After coming off the
road, Zappa concentrated on recording and on his orchestral music. On January
11, 1983, conductor Kent Nagano led the London Symphony Orchestra in a concert
of Zappa's works at the Barbican Arts Centre in London, preparatory to three
days of recordings that resulted, initially, in the album London Symphony
Orchestra, Vol. 1, released in June 1983. (A second volume followed in September
1987.) Prior to that, Zappa had released a new rock album, The Man from Utopia,
on March 28, 1983, which charted for several weeks.

As he had the year before, Zappa saw some of his orchestral music recorded in
January 1984, this time by the Ensemble InterContemporain of conductor Pierre
Boulez. With other material, these recordings would be released by Angel Records
on August 23, 1984, as Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger. The other
material was Zappa's own recording on an advanced synthesizer instrument he had
purchased called the Synclavier, capable of replicating orchestral arrangements.
The Synclavier freed Zappa from the technical limitations (and, in some cases,
the objections) of live musicians, especially classical musicians, and he turned
to it increasingly from this point on. Having discovered manuscripts of music
composed in the 18th century by an ancestor of his, Francesco Zappa, he recorded
an album of it on the Synclavier in March 1984, releasing the results on an LP
called Francesco Zappa on November 21, 1984.

On July 18, 1984, two years after the end of his last tour, Zappa went back on
the road for an extensive, worldwide trek that ran through December 23. On
October 18, he released a two-LP set, Them or Us. A month later came the
triple-LP box set, Thing-Fish, on the same day as the Francesco Zappa album. By
this time, Zappa's records were no longer reaching the charts, as he focused on
his existing fan base, heavily marketing to them through mail order. Having
re-acquired the masters to his Verve/MGM albums, he had found the tapes in dire
condition and had re-recorded the bass and drum parts for the albums We're Only
in It for the Money and Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets, which were part of a
box set he offered to his mailing list, The Old Masters Box 1, in April 1985.
(The Old Masters Box 2 followed in 1986, and the series was completed with The
Old Masters Box 3 in 1987.)

During the year 1985, a group of wives of prominent politicians in Washington,
D.C., formed the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and lobbed Congress for
restrictions on what they saw as obscenity in popular music. Zappa, long an
opponent of censorship, became a leader of the opposition to the PMRC, and on
September 19, 1985, he testified before the Senate Commerce Technology and
Transportation Committee to voice his opinions. Of course, his testimony was a
matter of public record, and he quickly used the recordings in an album he
assembled called Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention, released in
November 1985. In January 1986, it became his 33rd and last album to reach the
Billboard chart.

In January 1986, a Zappa live album drawn from the 1984 tour, Does Humor Belong
in Music?, was released in Europe, but quickly withdrawn. It was an
accompaniment to a home video of the same name that was taken from a single date
on the tour. The album was later reissued with a new mix. Meanwhile, Zappa
signed a contract with the independent CD label Rykodisc to reissue his albums
on CD. The reissue program was launched in the fall of the year. At the same
time, Zappa released a new instrumental album largely consisting of material
recorded on the Synclavier, Jazz from Hell. The album won him his first Grammy
Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance (Orchestra, Group or Soloist), and
the track "Jazz from Hell" itself earned a nomination for Best Instrumental
Composition.

On February 2, 1988, Zappa launched what would prove to be his final tour,
playing 81 dates in North America and Europe through June 9. Meanwhile, he
continued to issue new recordings. In April came a double album of guitar solos
in the manner of the Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar series, simply called
Guitar, and the first in a series of double-CD archival live recordings, You
Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1. In typically unusual Zappa style, the
series found him editing together live performances by different configurations
of the Mothers and his backup bands at different times. By 1992, the series
extended to six volumes. The second volume, which actually replicated a single
concert performed in Helsinki in 1974, appeared in October 1988 at the same time
as an album of recordings from the 1988 tour, Broadway the Hard Way. Launching a
home video line, Honker, in 1989, Zappa finally issued Uncle Meat on VHS tape,
along with the documentary The True Story of 200 Motels and Video from Hell.
(The following year, Honker issued The Amazing Mr. Bickford, a documentary about
the animator responsible for the clay animation work seen in Baby Snakes.) In
May 1989, Zappa published his autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book,
co-authored with Peter Occhiogrosso. And in another surprising non-musical
career development in 1989, Zappa began traveling to Russia as a business
liaison. These efforts were extended in January 1990, when he went to
Czechoslovakia, where he met the recently installed president, playwright and
Zappa fan Václav Havel, and agreed to become a trade representative for the
country. Understandably, this ran afoul of the Administration of American
President George Bush, however, and Zappa's role became unofficial.

It's hard to say what might have come of Zappa's trade efforts with the former
Soviet Union and the former Iron Curtain countries, where he was something of a
cultural hero. In May 1990, he suddenly canceled scheduled appearances in Europe
and returned to the U.S. due to illness. He managed to go to Czechoslovakia and
Hungary in June 1991, however. In the meantime, he continued to issue volumes of
the You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series and albums drawn from the 1988
tour, The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life in April 1991, and Make a Jazz
Noise Here in June 1991. In July 1991, in yet another unusual marketing move, he
assembled a collection of eight bootleg albums that had appeared over the years
and offered his own version of them (mastered directly from the bootleg LPs
themselves) as a box set called Beat the Boots; the albums were also released
individually, and a second Beat the Boots box was released in June 1992.

Zappa was scheduled to appear in New York for a performance by a group of alumni
from his bands called "Zappa's Universe" on November 7, 1991. When he was unable
to attend due to illness, his children explained publicly for the first time
that he was suffering from prostate cancer. He managed to fly to Germany on July
13, 1992, to work with the Ensemble Modern on a piece it had commissioned from
him, The Yellow Shark, and he was present for concerts it performed in
September. In October, Zappa released Playground Psychotics, an archival album
of previously unreleased material from the 1970-1971 edition of the Mothers. The
Yellow Shark was released in November 1993. Zappa died at age 52 on December 4,
1993.

After Zappa's death, his widow sold his existing catalog outright to Rykodisc.
But, like such well-established rock artists as the Grateful Dead, he had
produced a tremendous archive of studio and live recordings that Gail Zappa was
able to assemble into posthumous albums for his legions of fans. The first of
these was the ambitious Civilization Phaze III, which Zappa was working on in
the period up to his death, released in December 1994, and other albums, either
containing concerts or other material, have also appeared, along with expanded
versions of previously released albums such as Freak Out! Decades after Zappa's
death, this stream of releases showed no evidence of stopping, as long as Zappa
fans were interested in buying. © William Ruhlmann



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