Zappa, Frank: Band From Utopia: A Tribute to the Music of Frank Zappa (TDK DVD)

The Band from Utopia
A Tribute to the Music of Frank Zappa
Recorded at the Jazz Open, Stuttgart, July 1994

Ike Willis
Tommy Mars
Chad Wackerman

Picture Format: 4:3, 1 DVD
Sound Format: LPCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Running Time: 60 min
Region Code: NTSC All


Cat. No: DVWW-JTBFU (re-release)

Frank Zappa, musical avant-gardist and enfant terrible, was never really regarded as a jazz musician. His own attitude to jazz was relatively cynical: “Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny”, and indeed much of his creative work has little to do with jazz, yet its anti-commercial structure sets it apart from popular rock.

As a teenager he was enthused by composer Edgar Varèse and as time passed, his compositions were performed by respected interpreters like Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Modern and introduced to an appreciative public.

Shortly after Zappa’s death in December 1993 at the age of 52, the 1994 Jazz Open Festival in Stuttgart approached former Zappa sidemen and asked them to stage a tribute concert. They agreed and formed “The Band from Utopia” (whose name recalls the album “The Man From Utopia”). This was the first time all of these musicians collectively had taken the same stage at the same time. Many of them began their work with Zappa in the '70's and toured with the '88 band, which was Zappa's final live band.