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 August 15, 2009 Classic Zappa from Classic Records: Hot Rats on LP
When Zappa brought his back catalog to Rykodisc for reissue in 1987, he oversaw the digital remixing and remastering. Long the producer and often the engineer for his own albums, he cared deeply about how his music was recorded, and took great pains to make sure the new versions were presented in fidelity as high as he thought it should be. Some of the digital remasterings sounded very different from the originals -- better to some ears, often with more clarity and definition, but just as often, qualities of the original pressings went missing on the CDs. I’d always liked the mastering on Bizarre and its sister label, Straight, and missed, for example, the impact of the kick drums at the end of "Holiday in Berlin, Full-Blown," from Burnt Weeny Sandwich. The digital version was cleaner, and individual instruments came through more distinctly, but the power of the drums on the original was gone. In addition, the natural flow of analog had been replaced with the cool precision of digital. 1969 was a prolific year even for Frank Zappa, an artist whose rate of productivity remained formidable throughout his career. He released four LPs that year with the original and recently disbanded Mothers of Invention -- Uncle Meat (2 LPs), Burnt Weeny Sandwich, and Weasels Ripped My Flesh -- as well as the solo album Hot Rats. Though lacking the spoken passages, musique concrète, and influences of modernist classical composers found on the Mothers albums, Hot Rats contained three carefully scored compositions -- "Peaches En Regalia," "Little Umbrellas," and "It Must Be a Camel" -- as well as "Willie the Pimp" and "The Gumbo Variations," based on simple riffs that the band then improvised on. The remaining track, "Son of Mr. Green Genes," has a strong head arrangement that serves as a basis for Zappa’s guitar improvisations. Zappa hired some seasoned jazz musicians for the sessions. Drummers Paul Humphrey and John Guerin had both played widely with various jazz groups, as had bassist Max Bennett. Jean Luc Ponty, whose LP of Zappa compositions, King Kong, Zappa also produced that year, played violin on one track, and blues violinist Sugar Cane Harris appeared on two others. Ian Underwood, a member of various editions of the Mothers, contributed his skills on keyboards and reeds, and made important contributions to many of the arrangements. Though Hot Rats is often cited as an early example of jazz-rock fusion, it has little in common with the fusion records of the 1970s. While the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and other fusion bands emphasized speed and volume, Hot Rats, even in its riffiest moments, is always driven by melody. And "Willie the Pimp" and "The Gumbo Variations" are far more based on rock than on anything most fusion bands played.
Bernie Grundman, who took great care in mastering Classic’s edition of Hot Rats, includes some thoughts on his approach to the recording on an insert included with the record. "I remember Frank was also as meticulous about sound as he was about his music. So in order to do justice to these recordings and capture every nuance, I used custom tube playback electronics and a mastering console built in-house at Bernie Grundman Mastering." Gail Zappa, the composer’s widow, helped oversee the mastering, and added a note of her own: "A Word About Bernie Grundman by Gail Zappa: Ears!" Grundman has brought his subtle ear to many recordings, including much of Classic’s catalog, and in each case he’s been true to his mastering philosophy of "There are no changes, only replication." I’ve probably played my original LP of Hot Rats a few hundred times, and I’ve taken good care it. But the first time I played Classic’s 200gm Quiex vinyl, I heard an immediate clarity of detail and depth that my Bizarre pressing lacked. Ian Underwood’s processed keyboards on "Peaches En Regalia" had more texture, and his acoustic piano, which is mixed back a bit, was more focused and easier to hear. At first I missed the original LP’s bass presence, but on the Classic it’s subtler and more precisely placed in the soundstage. In "Willie the Pimp," Captain Beefheart’s voice now sounds clearer and better defined, and the percussion -- tambourine in the left channel, maracas in the right -- has more timbral accuracy. Throughout the LP, drum tones now sound truer, and the snare, toms, and kick drum are easier to visualize in the soundstage. I’ve always used "Little Umbrellas," which begins side 2, to determine how naturally a pair of speakers can reproduce the acoustic bass. Playing the Classic pressing, I can hear more of the instrument’s resonance -- its woodiness, really -- in this tune’s opening passages. A quick comparison with the CD of Hot Rats (my copy is from 1987, when Rykodisc’s CDs were still made in Japan) revealed a vastly different mix of the song, with Ian Underwood’s piano moved far forward. Returning to the CD reminded me that I prefer listening to this music on vinyl. The scattered percussion on "It Must Be a Camel" is rendered vividly on LP, but sounds bright and a bit intrusive on CD. Once again, the Classic edition presented instruments with more space and air around them, in comparison to both the CD and my original LP. The first time I played Classic’s Hot Rats, I heard a bit of edge and some blurring in the highs. However, new LPs often still carry release compounds and other impurities, and I’ve found that Classic LPs often benefit from a couple of plays or a good cleaning. Using a KAB EV-1 vacuum record cleaner (highly recommended to audiophiles on a budget), I cleaned the disc with Audio Intelligent’s Enzymatic Formula, then their Super Cleaner Formula, and finally rinsed it with distilled water (see the SoundStage! review of Audio Intelligent’s products). I noticed an immediate improvement: All edginess was gone, and the overall sound was smoother and more musical. Classic puts its LPs in poly-lined paper sleeves, but they also include, as an insert, another paper sleeve based on ones Bizarre Records used in the late 1960s and ’70s. It quotes the First Amendment in full, along with the Bizarre mission statement: "We make records that are a little different. We present musical and sociological material which the important record companies would probably not allow you to hear. Just what the world needs . . . another record company." The reverse side contains Grundman’s description of his mastering philosophy for the album. The gatefold cover is made of heavy stock, with the original art nicely reproduced. I was pleased to find that the cover is about 1/8" larger than most LP covers, which should prevent the splits along the spine that often happen when heavy pressings are shipped in standard-size covers. Classic has released both 150gm (Bizarre/Classic RS6356-150G, $25) and 200gm (Bizarre/Classic RS6356-200GRAM, $33) pressings of Hot Rats. Any admirer of Frank Zappa and any lover of analog will want to own one of them. I hope it’s only the first of many Zappa reissues from them. May I suggest, for the next time around, Burnt Weeny Sandwich? . . . Joseph Taylor
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Classic Records released its vinyl
edition of Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats in January with little fanfare, and I
haven’t been able to nail down whether it’s a one-off or the first in a series
of Zappa reissues. Much of Zappa’s extensive catalog has remained in print for the
past 20 years, following a period during the 1980s when his earlier records, on the Verve
and Bizarre labels, were unavailable or hard to find. I remember finding Hot Rats in
1972 or ’73, but earlier Zappa records, such as Freak Out! (1966), Absolutely
Free (1967), and Uncle Meat (1969) weren’t easy to track down in
the mall stores I haunted in central Pennsylvania. While it’s been nice to have
Zappa’s music easily available since the late ’80s, the albums have been
released solely in digital editions; Classic’s LP marks a welcome return to analog of
an important work in the composer’s oeuvre.
Hot
Rats was among the first albums to be made using a 16-track tape deck, and Zappa
exploited the technology to "really pile on tracks," as he told music historian
Neal Slaven. In his biography of Zappa, Electronic Don Quixote, Slaven also
quotes the musician’s assertion that "I think that that album is more about
overdubbing than it is about anything else." Actually, it’s about brilliant
playing and letting musical ideas unfold without most of the humor and other techniques
normally found on Zappa records. Despite all the overdubbing, Hot Rats feels
organic and spontaneous, and Zappa sets the tone of the music as both composer and
guitarist. Even a hard-rock tune like "Willie the Pimp" features guitar playing
that’s filled with musical ideas far beyond anything suggested by the basic riff, and
the brilliance of Zappa’s improvisation drives the rest of the musicians to inspired
heights.