{"id":20427,"date":"2021-02-03T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T10:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20427"},"modified":"2021-02-03T06:36:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T11:36:45","slug":"album-review-the-ed-palermo-big-band-the-adventures-of-zodd-zundgren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/03\/album-review-the-ed-palermo-big-band-the-adventures-of-zodd-zundgren\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Ed Palermo Big Band — The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Frank Zappa\u2019s body of work is massive. Even if one limits oneself to the music released during his lifetime, it\u2019s a lot. Me, I have his first 45 or so albums on vinyl, and scattered post-vinyl-era releases as well. And for those who appreciate his work, it\u2019s possible to focus on specific styles and\/or eras while skipping over the ones that perhaps don\u2019t resonate quite as much. Hey, it\u2019s nearly all great, but some of it is \u2026 difficult<\/i> (however you choose to define that word).<\/p>\n

Speaking for myself, one of the periods of his work that I find the most appealing is the late-Warners era, a period marked by battles between him and his label regarding what was released and what was not. Though they\u2019ve since been recompiled into a massive work called L<\/i>\u00e4<\/i>ther<\/i>, a trio of albums from the late\u2019 70s \u2013 Sleep Dirt<\/i>, Studio Tan<\/i> and most importantly Orchestral Favorites<\/i> \u2013 find Zappa exploring (among other things) the big band idiom.<\/p>\n

I mention this because that approach \u2013 also the central characteristic of 1972\u2019s The Grand Wazoo<\/i> \u2013 is one that has been picked up by Ed Palermo. The NYC-based guitarist and bandleader is a kindred spirit of Zappa\u2019s, with an approach that deftly balances the irreverent and wacky with serious and highly accomplished musicianship and arrangement chops. Palermo has made a career of applying that dual sensibility to big band treatments of the work of others.<\/p>\n

Now, The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren<\/i> was released in 2017. I recall hearing about it at the time, but because (a) a review copy never landed on my desk and (b) I was quite busy with other things, I never actually heard it. So when a CD showed up at Musoscribe World HQ in early January 2021, I was quite ready to check it out.<\/p>\n

As its title suggests, Adventures<\/i> explores the musical nexus in which the musics of Zappa and Todd Rundgren coexist. The album deftly combines \u2013 in back-n-forth fashion \u2013 compositions from both composers. But what it also does \u2013 and this is even more remarkable \u2013 is smash together the more musically challenging pieces with lovely ear candy melodies. While Todd Rundgren has long been admired for his ability to create both kinds of music, Zappa gets far less credit in that regard. He deserves it, though, as Adventures<\/i> so brilliantly illustrates.<\/p>\n

From the opening a cappella snippet of \u201cAbsolutely Free\u201d to the end, Adventures<\/em> is a delight, a musical roller coaster ride through the catalogs of both artists. The material is recast into the big band style, and almost completely without fail, it works beautifully. And Palermo digs deep, giving Nazz-era songs the treatment, too. The album is mostly instrumental, and tunes like Rundgren\u2019s \u201cInfluenza\u201d and Zappa\u2019s \u201cPeaches en Regalia\u201d simply soar, new life breathed into tunes that were already vibrant and enduring.<\/p>\n

A scat vocal reinvention of Zappa\u2019s \u201cEchidna\u2019s Arf (of You)\u201d is sublime; even though my tastes don\u2019t typically extend to Swingle Singers-type vocalese, this version of the instrumental work has me rethinking that perspective. And when I encountered Palermo\u2019s cover of Something\/Anything?<\/i> track \u201cBreathless,\u201d my first thought was, \u201cUh-oh.\u201d Would he include the part of the song that Todd, er, borrowed<\/i> from Vince Guaraldi? No, he would not, thank goodness.<\/p>\n

The see-saw Frank\/Todd sequencing fails exactly once, in my view. While the vocal pieces (many featuring the estimable Napoleon Murphy Brock, veteran of many Zappa sessions) are mostly a delight, a reading of \u201cEmperor of the Highway\u201d falls flat. It was overly cutesy to begin with, an exercise in stagy, Broadway-type music that never resonated with me. And the remake doesn\u2019t take the tune anywhere new; instead it doubles down on that approach. For fans of the tune (and of 2<\/i>nd<\/i><\/sup> Wind<\/i> and Up Against It<\/i>), the track may provide some enjoyment. For me, not so much.<\/p>\n

But that track is an outlier, prominent only because everything else here is so damn good, so incredibly well thought-out and seamlessly executed. For listeners who might find themselves intimidated<\/del> or put off by the quirkiness of Todd\u2019s and or\/ Zappa\u2019s music, The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren<\/i> could well serve as an entry point into their weird and wonderful worlds. And it\u2019s a great place to start digging into Ed Palermo\u2019s body of work, too.<\/p>\n

Highly, highly, highly<\/i> recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Zappa\u2019s body of work is massive. Even if one limits oneself to the music released during his lifetime, it\u2019s a lot. Me, I have his first 45 or so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,64,65],"tags":[3186,861,2228],"class_list":["post-20427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jazz","category-reissue","category-review","tag-ed-palermo","tag-frank-zappa","tag-todd-rundgren","cat-42-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20480,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20427\/revisions\/20480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}