At the start of the first concert in the 50th anniversary set celebrating Frank Zappa’s 1975 album Bongo Fury, the composer, guitarist and singer informs the audience that what they’re about to hear may be looser than usual, more like a recording session than a tightly scripted performance. It turns out he meant it. Zappa knew exactly what he was doing. Across two nights, he captured performances that move well beyond the regimented precision of his recent past.
Sure, there is plenty of impressive progressive jazz-rock fusion happening here but there is also a lot of space for freer art forms to happen including snarling raw blues and spoken word poetry.
Across five CDs and a Blu-ray Disc you’ll hear two full 1975 concerts by Zappa and this special band which included his friend and by then already iconoclastic music legend Captain Beefheart. Recorded at Austin’s Armadillo World Headquarters, if you were ever dissatisfied by the original single LP’s brevity this new collection now offers many hours of incredible music from these performances.
This band was a potent hybrid, a blues driven powerhouse with deep jazz fusion roots. The lineup pulls from Frank Zappa’s “Roxy” era, including keyboardist George Duke and vocalist and saxophonist Napoleon Murphy Brock, both heard on albums like Apostrophe(‘), One Size Fits All, and Roxy & Elsewhere. Zappa’s roaring solos are matched by Denny Walley’s electric slide work, while Terry Bozzio drives everything forward with the kind of hard hitting precision that would soon make him a drum legend.
And then there’s Captain Beefheart sneering takes on “Willie the Pimp” which alone justify the price of admission, a callback to his unforgettable vocal on Zappa’s 1969 landmark Hot Rats.
The sound quality of this 50th Anniversary Bongo Fury boxed set is excellent, most of it newly mixed from original 16-track tapes. Also included is audio engineer Bob Ludwig’s 2012 remaster of the core album.
The Blu-ray presents Bongo Fury in a range of formats that feel like a good, better, best progression. You get Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround and an immersive Dolby Atmos mix (7.1, 48 kHz/24-bit), alongside high resolution PCM stereo options at 96 kHz/24-bit and 192 kHz/24-bit.
The stereo mixes sound excellent on their own. The 5.1 mix keeps most of the performance anchored up front while using the surrounds for interesting effects and the wilder moments where discrete channel immersion is appropriate (and fun!). The Atmos mix opens things up further, adding scale and space without losing the raw, live feel that makes these performances work in the first place.
The bonus audio is fascinating, featuring a wildly different early version of “The Torture Never Stops” (a song which didn’t come out on LP until 1976’s Zoot Allures in a very different darker arrangement). This romping stomping version (which previously appeared on a 1991 live archive CD collection) plays more like a late 1950s electric blues this side of Howlin’ Wolf!
The Blu-ray also includes Zappa’s 1993 experiments mixing two songs into six-channel surround.
With so much great material spread across five CDs, picking favorites was hard to single out at this stage. That said, there are moments that stand out. The two versions of “Apostrophe(‘)” are worth comparing, especially on the second night where bassist Bruce Fowler delivers a more aggressive solo.
Zappa’s onstage experiments with an early prototype guitar synthesizer during “Willie the Pimp” are equally compelling. And then there are the deeper cuts, including previously unreleased tracks like “The Velvet Sunrise” and “Portuguese Lunar Landing.”
You can buy the boxed set or $66.80 at Amazon. Also available is an all-analog, 2LP, Bernie Grundman mastered expanded edition with “Bonus Fury” highlights on the second disc for $39.98 at Amazon. The 50th Anniversary Bongo Fury boxed set is great fun, shedding much new light on this short lived but fruitful moment in Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart’s’ careers.
Mark Smotroff is a deep music enthusiast / collector who has also worked in entertainment oriented marketing communications for decades supporting the likes of DTS, Sega and many others. He reviews vinyl for Analog Planet and has written for Audiophile Review, Sound+Vision, Mix, EQ, etc. You can learn more about him at LinkedIn.
Related Reading:
- Frank Zappa’s 1978 Halloween Show ‘The Big One’ Released In Full: New 5CD Super Deluxe Box Set
- Frank Zappa’s One Size Fits All 50th Anniversary Box Set Brings Dolby Atmos Remix And Rare Archival Recordings To Life
- Frank Zappa “Cheaper Than Cheep” Review: Lost Concert Restored In Atmos, Blu-Ray & 3LP Vinyl
- Frank Zappa’s Unreleased 1974 TV Program & Soundtrack, “Cheaper Than Cheep,” Rescued
