Frank Zappa’s Hot Licks (and Funny Smells)
(Rent a Dog)
Should we be remembering the old showman as a great jazz composer in the tradition of Ellington and Basie? Zappa was famously ambivalent about the genre, but here’s some persuasive evidence with his music clothed in Towns’s arrangements.
From the jaunty strut of Peaches en Rergalia, through to the headlong rush of G- Spot Tornado, the venerable German big band bring out the humour, energy and, yes, beauty in the music. The project inevitably rather overshadows Towns’s other new album, Lend Me Your Ears (Provocateur Records), demonstrating that he can write characterful big band music of his own.
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JOHN BUNGEY