Frank Zappa - Meridian Arts Ensemble Cover of Marqueson's Chicken Classical Version Them or Us

Loading...

Sign in or sign up now!
Alert icon
Upgrade to the latest Flash Player for improved playback performance. Upgrade now or more info.
234 views
Loading...
Alert icon
Sign in or sign up now!
Alert icon

Uploaded by on Jan 1, 2012

jon nelson: trumpet
josef burgstaller: trumpet
daniel grabois: horn
benjamin herrington: trombone
raymond g. stewart: tuba
john ferrari: drums
su lian tan: rap 8

Band-members, Musicians and Performers on Them or Us
Frank Zappa - guitar, keyboards, vocals, arranger, producer, main performer, assistant
Tommy Mars - keyboards, vocals, soloist
Patrick O'Hearn - wind, bass guitar
Scott Thunes - vocals, Minimoog, synthesizer, bass guitar
Johnny Guitar Watson - vocals, guitar
Ray White - guitar, vocals, backing vocals, choir, chorus, harmony vocals, harmony
Moon Unit Zappa - vocals
Ed Mann - percussion
Chad Wackerman - drums, vocals
Ike Willis - vocals, backing vocals, choir, chorus, harmony vocals, harmony
Arthur Barrow - bass guitar
Napoleon Murphy Brock - saxophone, vocals, harmony vocals, harmony
Brad Cole - piano
Roy Estrada - vocals, backing vocals, choir, chorus, harmony, bass guitar
Bob Harris - keyboards, vocals, harmony vocals
Thana Harris - vocals, harmony
Steve Vai - guitar, soloist, fills
Dweezil Zappa - soloist, guitar
George Duke - keyboards, vocals, piano
Bobby Martin - keyboards, saxophone, vocals, falssetist, harmony vocals, harmonica

For those who haven't heard: the Meridian Arts Ensemble is a very talented and innovative brass quintet, intent on expanding the repertoire, often commissioning new works. The MAE released an album called "Smart Went Crazy" which contains eleven or so minutes of FZ. This is a brass quintet with a drummer/percussionist added. The disk is 72 minutes long. (DDD)
So... What are you waiting for? Log out and go find it! Comparison to the Kronos Quartet is inevitable, especially now that MAE has thrown their rendition of "Purple Haze" into the ring. Those of you searching for this tasty little morsel, keep looking. I found it at a local Tower Records under Misc Brass in the Classical section. The Zappa tunes are: Big Swifty, Harry, You're a Beast, The Orange County Lumber Truck, T'mershi Duween, and Dupree's Paradise. These are just the first 5 out of 20 cuts on the disk. It took me a while to hear the rest of the tunes on account of I had to play this delightful suite about six times before going on. It is GREAT! The following quote is from the liner notes: "On March 12,1993 the Meridian Arts Ensemble performed these pieces for Mr. Zappa at his home in Los Angeles. The composer worked with us by critiquing the performance, making corrections in the arrangements, and giving suggestions for further interpretations. We feel very fortunate to have worked with him, and to have received his support for our continuing to adapt his work for this ensemble." From: Raymond G. Stewart, tuba player of the Meridian Arts Ensemble
The Meridian Arts Ensemble was formed in NYC in 1987 as a standard brass quintet chamber ensemble. In 1988, when Frank played at the Beacon we all were ignorant to his music. I think I had to run home (right past the theater) and watch Cagney and Lacey that night. I'm surprised at myself still because of any of the MAE members I had the most FZ background. I owned BONGO FURY on 8-track in high school and saw him on tour in the late seventies in my hometown of Carbondale, IL. I was a musician then and his music still just overwhelmed me, but I was more concerned about other
things at that time anyway....
The members of MAE take great pleasure in bringing genres together. This also includes you, the listener. If we can turn on the blue-hair crowd to a rowsing set of FZ music and maybe some Babbitt, then we're halfway there. We also want the 818PUMPKIN-junkie to come to our concerts and perhaps discover the way Johann Hermann Schein's psalm settings influenced JS Bach, even though the two never met.
We are not a band which plays the man's music exclusively. Never will be.
Our FORMER manager wanted us to do this. It's not for us. We're also very "by the book" when asked to perform Frank's music. If it smells funny, we're gone. Gail is very helpful in this way. A few other people have really helped us out: Gary Titone, Rob Samler, John Scialli, Frans Goddijn. I'm sure Jon Nelson could add a few names to this list.
To dispell a rumor, our next CD will not be all FZ. It will be recorded Feb '95 in Holland and probably contain Peaches en Regalia, Let's Make The Water Turn Black, Oh No, Igor's Boogie, Eat That Question, and Echidna's Arf (of you). We also took Run Home Slow/Little March, Little House I Used to Live In, and three versions of The Black Page on tour to Europe last summer.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

License:

Standard YouTube License

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (2)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • bel exercice de detache pour les eleves tronpetistes bravo!!

  • YES.. QUANTITY AND QUALITY!!

Loading...

Alert icon
0 / 00Unsaved Playlist Return to active list
    1. Your queue is empty. Add videos to your queue using this button:
      or sign in to load a different list.
    Loading...Loading...Saving...
    • Clear all videos from this list
    • Learn more