Music by Frank Zappa - Omnibus Wind Ensemble (Opus3 CD19403)

 

Tracklist

1. Inca Roads 2. How could I be such a fool? 3. Revised music for a low budget orchestra 4. Let's make the water turn black 5. The black page no. 2 6. No. 7  7. Igor's boogie

8. Be-bop tango 9. Alien orifice 10. Dog breath variations 11. Uncle meat 12. Sinister footwear-2nd movement 13. Brown shoes don't make it 14. Bolero (Ravel)

 

Rating: ***
 
The Omnibus Wind Ensemble are a dozen Swedes masquerading as classical musicians!  Masocshists that they are, they decided to do a whole album of Zappa compositions without getting a government grant first or anything.  Are these guys insane or what?  I think the following quote from the liner notes says it all:
 
The rehearsal room was like a battlefield - a haze of mysterious time signatires, scattered cries from distracted musicians, blood, sweat and and harmonious tears, and happy, somewhat astonished gasps when something actually fell into place.  The Omnibus wind-players staggered off the field for coffee breaks like pale but fiercely determined warriors.  And then suddenly one day one day a sense of victory spread through the group; it was possible to play this stuff!
(Angela Melander)
 
Do these people sound like warriors or what?  Yeah well you know what liner notes are worth . . .
 
Still, this is a pretty neat album.  The arrangements here function fairly well as a rule and occasionally they are downright clever!  Their performance of 'Brown shoes don't make it' is actually a revelation while their lounge-jazz-cum-John-Cale performance of Inca Roads is almost certifiably deranged.  Sure, sometimes they sound like they haven't got a clue but mostly the music is approached with affection and even insight.
 
For reasons that may not seem immediately obvious, this album ends with an arrangement of Ravel's Bolero.  Still, if you listen to it in context with the rest of the album, it seems to make sense.  The other 14 tracks are Zappa compositions and well worth listening too.  WARNING:  This ain't 101 Strings destroy the music of Frank Zappa!   Hopefully I won't live long enough to see such an artisitc and commercial tragedy.