Frank Zappa – The Freak
Out List (Chrome Dreams/MVD DVD)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Documentary: B
When you have watched
enough of the excellent series of music documentaries from the British company
Chrome Dreams, distributed in the U.S. by Music Video Distributors,
you expect nothing but hard to turn away from programs on the most important
music artists around. Frank Zappa, ever
underrated, is one of them and this second Chrome Dreams/MVD DVD following The Mother Of Invention In The 1960s
installment is called The Freak Out List. This time, it is a complex look at his
influences and the results are amazing.
The mix of artists
covered include the classical composer Schoenberg, the artists of the 1950s Doo
Woo movement including The Cadillacs, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Jazz, Miles Davis
and many others, but the amazing coverage just does not name all of the
influences, it shows how the influences work, covers the rarely discussed
situations in which they were being made (under duress from racism, snobbery
musically and other famous last words types not taking the material seriously
enough for instance) and finally begins to link Zappa with many music genres
and not just being written off as experimental.
Along with the usual
excellent interview segments and licensed music, it gets deeper into the
functions of the music and how important Zappa’s influences were to all of
music beyond any genre. The point made
is to say that he is ultimately a serious composer and not just an experimental
Rock artist, though I always thought of him as both. I liked the comparisons to what Zappa was
doing versus an Emerson, Lake & Palmer and other important artists of the
time.
Ultimately, this is one
of the widest-ranging installments in this very long, amazing series of
programs and if you want to see how excellent a Chrome Dreams music documentary
is, The Freak Out List is a great
place to start.
The 1.33 X 1 image is pretty good throughout, though some
stills and older material (analog videotape, for instance) can look aged,
especially since this goes back to the 1800s, but that is still typical of any
documentary, including one on music. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is also decent
and the original music sounds good, though as usual, I wish we had some
multi-channel versions of the music somewhere on the disc. Extras include the usual contributor
biographies, plus extended interviews with them and interesting featurette Frank Zappa’s Record Collection.
For more
on Zappa, we recommend you start with The Mother Of Invention In The
1960s installment at this
link, then follow more
links for more Zappa:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8046/Frank+Zappa+&+The+Mothers+Of+Inv
-
Nicholas Sheffo
